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NOTES OF A JOURNEY 

F-ROM 

COEIHILL TO GRAM CAIRO. 



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NOTES OF A JOURNEY 



CORIHILL TO GRAID CAIRO, 

BY WAY OF 

LISBON, ATHENS, CONSTANTINOPLE, 
AND JERUSALEM: 

PERFORMED IN THE STEAMERS OF THE PENINSULAR 
AND ORIENTAL COMPANY. 



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BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH, 



Author of "Thk Irish Sketoh-Book," &c. 



NEW- YORK: 
GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY 

1848. 






ettt 
Mrs. Henner. Jennings 

April 26. 1633 



3-? 



TO 



CAPTAIN SAMUEL LEWIS, 

OF THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION 

company's service. 
My Dear Lewis, 

After a voyage, during which the captain of the ship has 
displayed uncommon courage, seamanship, affability, or other 
good qualities, grateful passengers often present him with a token 
of their esteem, in the shape of teapots, tankards, trays, &c., of 
precious metal. Among authors, however, bullion is a much 
rarer commodity than paper, whereof I beg you to accept a little 
in the shape of this small volume. It contains a few notes of a 
voyage which your skill and kindness rendered doubly pleasant; 
and of which T don't think there is any recollection more agreea! 
ble, than that it was the occasion of making your friendship. 

If the noble Company in whose service you command (and 
whose fleet alone makes them a third-rate maritime power in 
Europe) should appoint a few admirals in their navy, I hope to 
hear that your flag is hoisted on board one of the grandest of 
their steamers. But, I trust, even there you will not foiiget the 
Iberia, and that delightful Mediterranean cruise we had in°her in 
the Autumn of 1844. 

Most faithfully yours, 

My dear Lewis, 

W. M. THACKERAY, 

LQjrpoN, December 24, 1S45. 



PREFACE 



O.v the 24th of July, 1844, the writer of this httle book 

went to dine at the Club, quite unconscious of the 

wonderful events which Fate had in store for him. 

Mr. William was there, giving a farewell dinner to his 
friend, Mr. James (now Sir James). These two asked 
Mr. Titmarsh to join company with them, and the conver- 
sation naturally fell upon the tour Mr. James was about to 
take. The Peninsular and Oriental Company had arranged 
an excursion in the Mediterranean, by which, in the space 
of a couple of months, as many men and cities were to be 
seen as Ulysses surveyed and noted in ten years. Malta, 
Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, were to 
be visited, and everybody was to be back in London by 
Lord Mayor s-day. 

The idea of beholding these famous places inflamed Mr. 
Titmarsh's mind ; and the charms of such a journey were 
eloquently impressed upon him by Mr. James. " Come," 
said that kind and hospitable gentleman, " and make one of 
my family party ; in all your life you will never probably 
have a chance again to see so much in so short a time. 
Consider — it is as easy as a journey to Paris or to Baden." 
Mr. Titmarsh considered all these things ; but also the 
difficulties of the situation : he had but six-and- thirty hours 
to get ready for so portentous a journey — he had engage- 
ments at home — finally, could he afford it? In spite of 
these objections, however, with every glass of claret the 
enthusiasm somehow rose, and the difficulties vanished. 



PREFACE. 



But when Mr. James, to crown all, said he had no doubt 
that his friends, the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental 
Company, would make Mr. Titmarsh the present of a berth 
for the voyage, all objections ceased on his part : to break 
his outstanding engagements — to write letters to his amazed 
family, stating that they were not to expect him at dinner 
on Saturday fortnight, as he would be at Jerusalem on that 
day—to purchase eighteen shirts and lay in a sea stock of 
Russia ducks, — was the work of four-and-twenty hours ; 
and on the 26th of July, the Lady Mary Wood was sailing 
from Southampton with the " subject of the present me- 
moir," quite astonished to find himself one of the passengers 
on board. 

These important statements are made partly to convince 
some incredulous friends — who insist still that the writer 
never went abroad at all, and wrote the following pages, 
out of pure fancy, in retirement at Putney ; but mainly, to 
give him an opportunity of thanking the Directors of the 
Company in question for a delightful excursion. 

It was one so easy, so charming, and I think profitable — 
it leaves such a store of pleasant recollections for after 
days — and creates so many new sources of interest (a 
new^spaper letter from Bey rout, or Malta, or Algiers, has 
twice the interest now that it. had formerly), — that I can't 
but recommend all persons who have time and means to 
make a similar journey — vacation idlers to extend their 
travels and pursue it ; above ail, young, well-educated men 
entering life, to take this course, we will say, after that at 
college ; and, having their book-learning fresh in their 
minds, see the living people and their cities, and the actual 
aspect of Nature, along the faxnous shores of the Medi- 
terranean. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I.—VIGO 1 

Vigo— Thoughts at Sea— Sight of Land— Vigo — Spanish Ground 
— Spanish Troops — Passagero. 

CHAPTER II.— LISBON AND CADIZ 8 

Lisbon — The Belem Road— A School — Landscape— Palace of Ne- 
cessidades — Cadiz — The Rock. 

CHAPTER III.— THE LADY MARY WOOD 18 

British Lions — Travelling Friends — Bishop, No. 2 — Good bye, 
Bishop— The Meek Lieutenant— Lady Mary Wood. 

CHAPTER IV.— GIBRALTAR 25 

Gibraltar— Mess-Room Gossip — Military Horticulture — All's Well 
— A Release — Gibraltar — Malta — Religion and Nobility — Malta 
Relics — The Lazaretto — Death in the Lazaretto. 

CHAPTER v.— ATHENS 38 

Reminiscences of ruTrrw— The Peiraeus — Landscape — Basileus — 
England for ever — Classic Remains — tv^ttu) again. 

CHAPTER VI.— SMYRNA-FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST 47 
First Emotions — The Bazaar — A Bastinado — Women — The Cara- 
van Bridge — Smyrna — The Whistler. 

CHAPTER VII —CONSTANTINOPLE 56 

Constantinople — Caiques— Eothen's Misseri — A Turkish Bath — 
Constantinople — His Highness the Sultan — Ich mochte nicht der 
Sultan Seyn — A Subject for a Ghazul — The Child Murderer — 
Turkish Children— Modesty— The Seraglio— The Sultana's Puffs 
— The Sublime Porte— The Schoolmaster in Constantinople. 

CHAPTER VIII.— RHODES 73 

Jew Pilgrims — Jew Bargaining — Relics of Chivalry — Mahometan- 
ism Bankrupt — A Dragoman — A Fine Day — Rhodes. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAPTER IX.— THE WHITE SQUALL 86 

CHAPTER X.— TELMESSUS— BEYROUT 91 

Telmessus— Halil Pasha— Beyrout— A Portrait — A Ball on Board 
— A Syrian Prince. 

CHAPTER XL— A DAY AND NIGHT IN SYRIA 99 

Landing at Jafia— Jaffa— The Cadi of Jaffa— The Cadi's Divan— 
A Night Scene at Jaffa— Syrian Night's Entertainments. 

CHAPTER XII.— FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM 107 

A Cavalcade — iMarching Order — A Tournament — Ramleh — Road- 
side Sketches — Rencontres — Abou Gosh — Night before Jerusalem. 

CHAPTER XIII.— JERUSALEM 116 

A Pillar of the Church — Quarters — Jewish Pilgrims — Jerusalem 
Jews — English Service — Je^vish History — The Church of the Se- 
pulchre — The Porch of the Sepulchre — Greek and Latin Legends 
—The Church of the Sepulchre— Bethlehem — The Latin Convent 
— The American Consul — Subjects for Sketching — Departure— A 
Day's March — Ramleh. 

CHAPTER XIV.— FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA 136 

Bill of Fare — From Jaffa to Alexandria. 

CHAPTER XV.— TO CAIRO 143 

The Nile— First Sight of Cheops— The Ezbekieh— The Hotel 
d'Orient — The Conqueror Waghorn — Architecture — The Chief of 
the Hag — A Street Scene — Arnaoots — A Gracious Prince — The 
Screw-propeller in Egypt — The " Rint" in Egypt — The Maligned 
Orient — The " Sex" — Subjects for Painters — Slaves — x-^ Hyde Park 
Moslem — Glimpses of the Harem — An Eastern Acquaintance — An 
Egyptian Dinner — Life in the Desert — From the Top of the PyTa- 
mid — Groups for Landscape— Pigmies and Pyramids— Things to 
think of — Finis. 



A JOURNEY 

FROM 

CORNHILL TO CAIRO 



VIGO. 

The sun brought all the sick peo^ie out of their berths this morn- 
ing, and the indescribable moans and noises which had been issu- 
ing from behind the fine painted doors on each side of the cabin 
happily ceased. Long before sunrise, I had the good fortune to 
discover that it was no longer necessary to maintain the horizon- 
tal posture, and, the very instant this truth was apparent, came on 
deck, at two o'clock in the morning, to see a noble full moon sink- 
ing westward, and millions of the most brilliant stars shining 
overhead. The night was so serenely pure, that you saw them 
in magnificent airy perspective : the blue sky around and over 
them, and other more distant orbs sparkling above, till they glit- 
tered away faintly into the immeasurable distance. The ship 
went rolling over a heavy, sweltering, calm sea. The breeze was 
a warm and soft one ; quite different to the rigid air we had left 
behind us, two days since, off the Isle of Wight. The bell kept 
tolling its half hours, and the mate explained the mystery of watch 
and dog-watch. 

The sight of that noble scene cured all the woes and discomfit- 
ures of sea-sickness at once, and if there were any need to com- 
municate such secrets to the public, one might tell of much more 
good that the pleasant morning-watch effected ; but there are a 

2 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



set of emotions about which a man had best be shy of talking 
lightly, — and the feelings excited by contemplating this vast, mag- 
nificent, harmonious Nature are among these. The view of it 
inspires a delight and ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, 
but M'hich has something secret in it that a man should not utter 
loudly. Hope, memory, humility, tender yearnings towards dear 
friends, and inexpressible love and reverence towards the power 
which created the infinite universe blazing above eternally, and 
the vast ocean shining and rolling around — fill the heart with a 
solemn, humble happiness, that a person dwelling in a city has 
rarely occasion to enjoy. They are coming away from London 
parties at this time : the dear little eyes are closed in sleep under 
mother's wing. How far off city cares and pleasures appear to 
be ! how small and mean they seem, dwindling out of sight before 
this magnificent brightness of Nature ! But the best thoughts 
only grow- and strengthen under it. Heaven shines above, and 
the humbled spirit looks up reverently towards that boundless as- 
pect of wisdom and beauty. You are at home, and with all at 
rest there, however far away they may be ; and through the dis- 
tance the heart broods over them, bright and wakeful like yonder 
peaceful stars overhead. 

The day w^as as fine and calm as the night ; at seven bells, sud- 
denly a bell began to toll very much like that of a country church, 
and on going on deck we found an awning raised, a desk with a 
flag flung over it close to the compass, and the ship's company 
and passengers assembled there to hear the captain read the ser- 
vice in a manly respectful voice. This, too, was a novel and 
touching sight to me. Peaked ridges of purple mountains rose to 
the left of the ship, — Finisterre and the coast of Gallicia. The 
sky above was cloudless and shining ; the vast dark ocean smiled 
peacefully round about, and the ship went roiling over it, as the 
people within were praising the I\Iaker of all. 

In honor of the day, it was announced that the passengers 
would be regaled with champagne at dinner ; and accordingly 
that exhilarating liquor was served out in decent profusion, the 
company drinking the captain's health with the customary ora- 



VIGO. 3 

lions of compliment and acknowledgment. This feast was 
scarcely ended, when we found ourselves rounding the headland 
into Vigo Bay, passing a grim and tall island of rocky mountains 
which lies in the centre of the bay. 

Whether it is that the sight of land is always welcome to weary 
mariners, after the perils and annoyances of a voyage of three 
days, or whether the place is in itself extraordinarily beautiful, 
need not be argued ; but I have seldom seen anything more 
charming than the amphitheatre of noble hills into which the ship 
now came — all the features of the landscape being lighted up 
with a wonderful clearness of air, which rarely adorns a view in 
our country. The sun had not yet set, but over the town and 
lofty rocky castle of Vigo a great ghost of a moon was faintly 
visible, which blazed out brighter and brighter as the superior 
luminary retired behind the purple mountains of the headland 
to rest. Before the general back-ground of waving heights 
which encompassed the bay, rose a second semicircle of undulat- 
ing hills, as cheerful and green as the mountains behind them 
were grey and solemn. Farms and gardens, convent towers, 
white villages and churches, and buildings that no doubt were 
hermitages once, upon the sharp peak of the hills, shone brightly 
in the sun. The sight was delightfully cheerful, animated, and 
pleasing. 

Presently the captain roared out the magic words, " Stop her !" 
and the obedient vessel came to a stand-still, at some three hun- 
dred yards from the little town, with its white houses clambering 
up a rock, defended by the superior mountain whereon the castle 
stands. Numbers of people, arrayed in various brilliant colors 
of red, were standing on the sand close by the tumbling, shining, 
purple waves : and there we beheld, for the first time, the royal 
red and yellow standard of Spain floating on its own ground, under 
the guardianship of a light blue sentinel, whose musket glittered 
in the sun. Numerous boats were seen, incontinently, to put off 
from the little shore. 

And now our attention was withdrawn from the land to a sight 
of great splendor on board. This was Lieutenant Bundy, the 
guardian of her Majesty's mails, who issued from his cabin in his 
long swallow-tailed coat, with anchor buttons ; his sabre clatter- 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



ing between his legs ; a magnificent shirt-collar, of several inches 
in height, rising round his good-humored sallow face ; and above 
it a cocked hat, that shone so, I thought it was made of polished 
tin (it may have been that or oilskin), handsomely laced with 
black worsted, and ornamented with a shining gold cord. A lit- 
tle squat boat, rowed by three ragged gallegos, came bouncing 
up to the ship. Into this Mr. Bundy and her Majesty's royal 
mail embarked with much majesty ; and in the twinkling of an 
eye, the royal standard of England, about the size of a pocket- 
handkerchief, — and at the bows of the boat, the man-of-war's pen- 
nant, being a strip of bunting considerably under the value of a 
farthing, — streamed out. ^ 

" They know that flag, sir," said the good-natured old tar, 
quite solemnly, in the evening afterwards : " they respect it, sir." 
The authority of her Majesty's lieutenant on board the steamer 
is stated to be so tremendous, that he may order it to stop, to 
move, to go larboard, starboard, or what you will ; and the cap- 
tain dare only disobey him, suo periculo. 

It was agreed that a party of us should land for half an hour, 
and taste real Spanish chocolate on Spanish ground. We followed 
Lieutenant Bundy, but humbly in the provider's boat ; that officer 
going on shore to purchase fresh eggs, milk for tea (in place of 
the slimy substitute of whipped yolk of egg, which we had been 
using for our morning and evening meal), and, if possible, oys- 
ters, for which it is said the rocks of Vigo are famous. 

It was low tide, and the boat could not get up to the dry shore. 
Hence it was necessary to take advantage of the offers of sundry 
gallegos, who rushed barelegged into the water, to land on their 
shoulders. The approved method seems to be, to sit upon one 
shoulder only, holding on by the porter's whiskers ; and though 
some of our party were of the tallest and fattest men whereof our 
race is composed, and their living sedans exceedingly meagre and 
small, yet all were landed without accident upon the juicy sand, 
and forthwith surrounded by a host of mendicants, screaming — 
" I say, sir ! penny, sir ! I say, English ! tarn your ays ! penny !" 
in all voices, from extreme youth to the most lousy and venera- 
ble old age. When it is said that these beggars were as ragged 



SPANISH GROUND. 



as those of Ireland, and still more voluble, the Irish traveller will 
be able to form an opinion of their capabilities. 

Through this crowd we passed up some steep rocky steps, 
through a little low gate, where, in a little guard-house and bar- 
rack, a few dirty little sentinels were keeping a dirty little guard ; 
and by low-roofed, whitewashed houses, with balconies, and 
women in them, — the very same women, with the very same 
head clothes, and yellow fans and eyes, at once sly and solemn, 
which Murillo painted, — by a neat church into which we took a 
peep, and, finally, into the Plaza del Constitucion, or grand place 
of the town, which may be about as big as that pleasing square, 
Pump Court, Temple. We were taken to an inn, of which I 
forget the name, and were shown from one chamber and story to 
another, till we arrived at that apartment where the real Spanish 
chocolate was finally to be served out. All these rooms were as 
clean as scrubbing and whitewash could make them ; with sim- 
ple French prints (with Spanish titles) on the walls ; a few rick- 
etty half-finished articles of furniture ; and, finally, an air of ex- 
tremely respectable poverty. A jolly, black-eyed, yellow-shawled 
Dulcinea conducted us through the apartment, and provided us 
with the desired refreshment. 

Sounds of clarions drew our eyes to the Place of the Constitu- 
tion ; and, indeed, I had forgotten to say, that that majestic 
square was filled with military, with exceedingly small firelocks, 
the men ludicrously young and diminutive for the most part, in a 
uniform at once cheap and tawdry, — like those supplied to the 
warriors at Astley's, or from still humbler theatrical wardrobes: 
indeed, the whole scene was just like that of a little theatre ; 
the houses curiously small, with arcades and balconies, out of 
which looked women apparently a great deal too big for the 
chambers they inhabited ; the warriors were in ginghams, cot- 
tons, and tinsel ; the officers had huge epaulets of sham silver 
lace drooping over their bosoms, and looked as if they were attired 
at a very small expense. Only the general — the captain-general 
(Pooch, they told us, was his name : I know not how 't is written in 
Spanish) — was well got up, with a smart hat, a real feather, huge 
stars glittering on his portly chest, and tights and boots of the 
first order. Presently, after a good deal of trumpeting, the little 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



men marched off the place, Pooch and his staff coming into the 
very inn in which we were awaiting our chocolate. 

Then we had an opportunity of seeing some of the civilians of 
the town. Three or four ladies passed, with fan and mantle ; 
to them came three or four dandies, dressed smartly in the 
French fashion, with strong Jewish physiognomies. There was 
one, a solemn lean fellow in black, with his collars extremely 
turned over, and holding before him a long ivory-tipped ebony 
cane, who tripped along the little place with a solemn smirk, 
which gave one an indescribable feeling of the truth of Gil Bias, 
and of those delightful bachelors and licentiates who have ap- 
peared to us all in our dreams. 

In fact we were but half an hour in this little queer Spanish 
town ; and it appears like a dream, too, or a little show got up 
to amuse us. Boom ! the gun fired at the end of the funny little 
entertainment. The women and the balconies, the beggars and 
the walking Murillos, Pooch and the little soldiers in tinsel, dis- 
appeared, and were shut up in their box again. Once more we 
were carried on the beggars' shoulders out of the shore, and we 
found ourselves again in the great stalwart roast-beef world ; the 
stout British steamer bearing out of the bay, whose purple waters 
had grown more purple. The sun had set by this time, and the 
moon above was twice as big and bright as our degenerate moons 
are. 

The provider had already returned with his fresh stores, and 
Bundy's tin hat was popped into its case, and he walking the 
deck of the packet denuded of tails. As we went out of the 
bay, occurred a little incident with which the great incidents of 
the day may be said to wind up. We saw before us a little ves- 
sel, tumbling and plunging about in the dark waters of the bay, 
with a bright light beaming from the mast. It made for us at about 
a couple of miles from the town, and came close up, flouncing 
and bobbing in the very jaws of the paddle, which looked as if 
it would have seized and twirled round the little boat and its 
light, and destroyed them for ever and ever. All the passengers, 
of course, came crowding to the ship's side to look at the bold 
little boat. 



PASSAGERO 



" I SAY !" howled a man ; " I say ! — a word ! — I say ! Pas- 
sage ro ! Passagero! Passage-e-ro !" We were two hundred 
yards ahead by this time. 

" Go on," says the captain. 

" You may stop if you like," says Lieutenant Bundy, exerting 
his tremendous responsibility. It is evident that the lieutenant 
has a soft heart, and felt for the poor devil in the boat who was 
howling so piteously " Passagero !" 

But the captain was resolute. His duty was not to take the 
man up. He was evidently an irregular customer — some one 
trying to escape, possibly. 

The lieutenant turned away, but did not make any further 
hints. The captain was right ; but we all felt somehow disap- 
pointed, and looked back wistfully at the little boat, jumping up 
and down far astern now ; the poor little light shining in vain, 
and the poor wretch within screaming out in the most heart-rend- 
ing accents a last faint, desperate — " I say ! Passagero-o !" 

We all went down to tea rather melancholy ; but the new 
milk, in the place of that abominable whipped-egg, revived us 
again ; and so ended the great events on board the " Lady Jane 
Wood " steamer, on the 25th August, 1844. 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



11. 



LISBON . C ADIZ . 



A GREAT misfortune which befalls a man who has but a single 
day to stay in a town, is that fatal duty which superstition entails 
upon him of visiting the chief lions of the city in which he may 
happen to be. You must go though the ceremony, however much 
you may sigh to avoid it ; and however much you know that the 
lions in one capital roar very much like the lions in another ; 
that the churches are more or less large and splendid ; the pa- 
laces pretty spacious, all the world over ; and that there is scarcely 
a capital city in this Europe but has its pompous bronze statue or 
two of some periwigged, hook-nosed emperor, in a Roman habit, 
waving his bronze baton on his broad-flanked brazen charger. 
We only saw these state old lions in Lisbon, whose roar has long 
since ceased to frighten one. First we went to the church of St. 
Roch, to see a famous piece of mosaic work there. It is a fa- 
mous work of art, and was bought by I don't know what king, 
for I don't know how much money. All this information may 
be perfectly relied on, though the fact is we did not see the mo- 
saic work ; the sacristan, who guards it, was yet in bed ; and it 
was veiled from our eyes in a side chapel by great dirty damask 
curtains, which could not be removed, except when the sacristan's 
toilette was done, and at the price of a dollar. So we were 
spared this mosaic exhibition ; and I think I always feel relieved 
when such an event occurs. I feel I have done my duty in com- 
ing to see the enormous animal — if he is not at home, Virtute 
med me, ^c, — we have done our best, and mortal can do no more. 
In order to reach that church of the forbidden mosaic, we had 
sweated up several most steep and dusty streets — hot and dusty, 
although it was but nine o'clock in the morning. Thence the 
guide conducted us into some little dusty-powdered gardens, in 



LISBON. 



which the people make believe to enjoy the verdure, and whence 
you look over a great part of the arid, dreary, stony city. There 
was no smoke, as in honest London, only dust — dust over the 
gaunt houses and the dismal yellow strips of gardens. Many 
churches were there, and tall, half-baked looking public edifices, 
that had a dry, uncomfortable, earthquaky look, to my idea. The 
ground-floors of the spacious houses by which we passed, seemed 
the coolest and pleasantest portions of the mansion. They were 
cellars or warehouses, for the m.ost part, in which white-jacketted 
clerks sat smoking easy cigars. The streets were plastered with 
placards of a bull-fight, to take place the next evening (there was 
no opera at that season) ; but it was not a real Spanish tauroma- 
chy — only a theatrical combat, as you could see by the picture, 
in which the horseman was cantering off at three miles an hour, 
the bull tripping after him with tips to his gentle horns. Mules 
interminable, and almost all excellently sleek and handsome, were 
pacing down every street : here and there, but later in the day, 
came clattering along a smart rider, on a prancing Spanish 
horse ; and in the afternoon a few families might be seen in the 
queerest, old-fashioned little carriages, drawn by their jolly mules, 
and swinging between, or rather before, enormous wheels. 

The churches I saw were of the florid periwig architecture — 1 
mean, of that pompous, cauliflower-kind-of-ornament, which was 
the fashion in Louis the Fifteenth's time, at which unlucky pe 
riod a building mania seems to have seized upon many of the 
monarchs of Europe, and innumxcrable public edifices were 
erected. It seems to me to have been the period in all history 
when society was the least natural, and perhaps the most disso- 
lute ; and I have always fancied that the bloated artificial forms 
of the architecture partake of the social disorganization of the 
time. Who can respect a simpering ninny, grinning in a Roman 
dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is made to pass off for a hero ; 
or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most doubtful virtue, who 
leers at you as a goddess ? In the palaces which we saw, several 
court-allegories were represented, which, atrocious as they were 
in point of art, might yet serve to attract the regard of the moral- 
izer. There were Faith, Hope, and Charity restoring Don John 
to the arms of his happy Portugal : there were Virtue, Valor, and 
2* 



10 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Victory saluting Don Emanuel : Reading, Writing, and Arith- 
metic (for what I know, or some mythologic nymphs) dancing 
before Don Miguel — the picture is there still, at the Ajuda ; and, 
ah, me ! where is poor Mig '?. Well, it is these state lies and 
ceremonies that we persist in going to see ; whereas a man would 
have a much better insight into Portuguese manners, by planting 
himself at a corner, like yonder beggar, and watching the real 
transactions of the day. 

A drive to Belem is the regular route practised by the traveller 
who has to make only a short stay, and accordingly a couple of 
carriages were provided for our party, and we were driven through 
the long merry street of Belem, peopled by endless strings of 
mules, — by thousands of gallegos, with water-barrels on their 
shoulders, or lounging by the fountains to hire, — by the Lisbon 
and Belem omnibuses, with four mules, jingling along at a good 
pace ; and it seemed to me to present a far more lively and 
cheerful, though not so regular, appearance as the stately 
quarters of the city we had left behind us. The little shops 
were at full work — the men brown, well-dressed, manly, and 
handsome : so much cannot, I am sorry to say, be said for the 
ladies, of whom, with every anxiety to do so, our party could not 
perceive a single good-looking specimen all day. The noble blue 
Tagus accompanies you all along these three miles of busy, plea- 
sant street, whereof the chief charm, as I thought, was its look of 
genuine business — that appeai'ance of comfort which the cleverest 
court-architect never knows how to give. 

The carriages (the canvas one with four seats and the chaise 
in which I drove) were brought suddenly up to a gate with the 
royal arms over it ; and here we were introduced to as queer an 
exhibition as the eye has often looked on. This was the state- 
carriage house, where there is a museum of huge, old, tumble- 
down, gilded coaches of the last century, lying here, mouldy and 
dark, in a sort of limbo. The gold has vanished from the great, 
lumbering, old wheels and panels ; the velvets are wofully tar- 
nished. When one thinks of the patches and powder that have 
simpered out of those plate glass windows — the mitred bishops, 
the big-wigged marshals, the shovel-hatted abbes which they 
have borne in their time — the human mind becomes affected in 



A SCHOOL. 



no ordinary degree. Some human minds heave a sigh for the 
glories of by-gone days ; while others, considering rather the lies 
and humbug, the vice and servility, which went framed and 
glazed and enshrined, creaking along in those old Juggernaut 
cars, with fools worshipping under the wheels, console themselves 
for the decay of institutions that may have been splendid and 
costly, but were ponderous, clumsy, slow, and unfit for daily 
wear. The guardian of these defunct old carriages tells some 
prodigious fibs concerning them : he pointed out one carriage 
that was six hundred years old in his calendar ; but any connois- 
seur in bricabrac can see it was built at Paris in the Regent Or- 
leans' time. 

Hence it is but a step to an institution in full life and vigor, — 
a noble orphan school for one thousand boys and girls, founded 
by Don Pedro, who gave up to its use the superb convent of Be- 
lem, with its splendid cloisters, vast airy dormitories, and magnifi- 
cent church. Some Oxford gentlemen would have wept to see 
the desecrated edifice, — to think that the shaven polls and white 
gowns were banished from it to give place to a thousand children, 
who have not even the clergy to instruct them. " Every lad here 
may choose his trade," our little informant said, who addressed 
us in better French than any of our party spoke, whose manners 
were perfectly gentlemanlike and respectful, and whose clothes, 
though of a common cotton stuff, were cut and worn with a mili- 
tary neatness and precision. All the children whom w» remarked 
were dressed with similar neatness, and it was a pleasure to go 
through their various rooms for study, where some were busy at 
mathematics, some at drawing, some attending a lecture on tailor- 
ing, while others were sitting at the feet of a professor of the 
science of shoemaking. All the garments of the establishment 
were made by the pupils ; even the deaf and dumb were draw- 
ing and reading, and the blind were, for the most part, set to per- 
form on musical instruments, and got up a concert for the visit- 
ors. It was then we wished ourselves of the numbers of the 
deaf and dumb, for the poor feltows made noises so horrible, that 
even as blind beggars they could hardly get a livelihood in the 
musical way. 



12. A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Hence we were driven to the huge palace of Necessidades, 
which is but a wing of a building that no king of Portugal ought 
ever to be rich enough to complete, and which, if perfect, might 
outvie the Tower of Babel. The mines of Brazil must have 
been productive of gold and silver, indeed, when the founder 
imagined this enormous edifice. From the elevation on which it 
stands it commands the noblest views, — the city is spread before 
it, with its many churches and towers, and for many miles you 
see the magnificent Tagus, rolling by banks crowned with trees 
and towers. But, to arrive at this enormous building you have 
to climb a steep suburb of M'-retched huts, many of them with 
dismal gardens of dry, cracked earth, where a few reedy sprouts 
of Indian corn seemed to be the chief cultivation, and Vv^hich 
were guarded by huge plants of spiky aloes, on which the rags 
of the proprietors of the huts were sunning themselves. The 
terrace before the palace was similarly encroached upon by these 
wretched habitations. A few millions, judiciously expended, 
might make of this arid hill one of the most magnificent gardens 
in the world ; and the palace seems to me to excel for situation 
any royal edifice I have ever seen. But the huts of these 
swarming poor have crawled up close to its gates,- — the superb 
walls of hewn stone stop all of a sudden with a lath-and-plaster 
hitch; and capitals, and hewn stones for columns, still lying 
about on the deserted terrace, may lie there for ages to come, 
probably, ^d never take their places by the side of their brethren 
in yonder tall bankrupt galleries. The air of this pure sky has 
little effect upon the edifices, — the edges of the stone look as 
sharp as if the builders had just left their work ; and close to the 
grand entrance stands an outbuilding, part of which may have 
been burnt fifty years ago, but it is in such cheerful preservation, 
that you might fancy the fire had occurred yesterday. It must 
have been an awful sight from this hill to have looked at the city 
spread before it, and seen it reeling and swaying in the time of 
the earthquake. I thought it looked so hot and shaky, that one 
might fancy a return of the fit.. In several places still remain 
gaps and chasms, and ruins lie here and there as they cracked 
and fell. 



THE NECESSIDADES. 13 

Although the palace has not attained anything like its full 
growth, yet what exists is quite big enough for the monarch of 
such a little country ; and Versailles or Windsor has not apart- 
ments more nobly proportioned. The Queen resides in the 
Adjuda, a building of much less pretensions, of which the yellow 
walls and beautiful gardens are seen between Belem and the 
city. The Necessidades are only used for grand galas, recep- 
tions of ambassadors, and ceremonies of state. In the throne- 
room is a huge throne, surmounted by an enormous gilt crown, 
than which I have never seen anything larger in the finest panto- 
mime at Drury Lane ; but the effect of this splendid piece is 
lessened by a shabby old Brussels carpet, almost the only other 
article of furniture in the apartment, and not quite large enough 
to cover its spacious floor. The looms of Kidderminster have 
supplied the web which ornaments the " Ambassadors' Waiting- 
room," and. the ceilings are painted with huge allegories in dis- 
temper, which pretty well correspond with the other furniture. 
Of all the undignified objects in the world, a palace out at elbows 
is surely the meanest. Such places ought not to be seen in ad- 
versity, — splendor is their decency, — and when no longer able to 
maintain it, they should sink to the level of their means, calmly 
subside into manufactories, or go shabby in seclusion. 

There is a picture-gallery belonging to the palace that is quite 
of a piece with the furniture, where are the mythological pieces 
relative to the kings before alluded to, and where the English 
visitor will see some astonishing pictures of the Duke of Wel- 
lington, done in a very characteristic style of Portuguese art. 
There is also a chapel, which has been decorated with much 
care and sumptuousness of ornament, — the altar surmounted by 
a ghastly and horrible carved figure in the taste of the time, when 
faith was strengthened by the shrieks of Jews on the rack, and 
enlivened by the roasting of heretics. Other such frightful 
images may be seen in the churches of the city ; those which we 
saw were still rich, tawdry, and splendid to outward show, al- 
though the French, as usual, had robbed their shrines of their 
gold and silver, and the statues of their jewels and crowns. But 
brass 'and tinsel look to the visitor full as well at a little distance, 



14 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

— as doubtless Soult and Junot thought, when they despoiled 
these places of worship, like French philosophers as they were. 

A friend, with a classical turn of mind, was bent upon seeing 
the aqueduct, whither we went on a dismal excursion of three 
hours, in the worst carriages, over the most diabolical clattering 
roads, up and down dreary parched hills, on which grew a few 
grey olive trees and many aloes. When we arrived, the gate 
leading to the aqueduct was closed, and we were entertained with 
a legend of some respectable character who had made a good 
livelihood there for some time past lately, having a private key 
to this very aqueduct, and lying in wait there for unwary tra- 
vellers, like ourselves, whom he pitched down the arches into the 
ravines below, and there robbed them at leisure. So that all we 
saw was the door and the tall arches of the aqueduct, and by the 
time we returned to town it was time to go on board the ship 
again. If the inn at which we had sojourned wae not of the 
best quality, the bill, at least, would have done honor to the first 
establishment in London. We all left the house of entertainment 
joyfully, glad to get out of the sunburnt city, and go home. 
Yonder in the steamer was home, with its black funnel and gilt 
portraiture of Lady Mary Wood at the bows ; and every soul on 
board felt glad to return to the friendly little vessel. But the 
authorities, however, of Lisbon are very suspicious of the de- 
parting stranger, and we were made to lie an hour in the river 
before the Sanita boat, where a passport is necessary to be pro- 
cured before the traveller can quit the country. Boat after boat, 
laden with priests and peasantry, with handsorrte red-sashed gal- 
legos clad in brown, and ill-favored women, came and got their 
permits, and were off, as we lay bumping up against the old hull 
of the Sanita boat ; but the officers seemed to take a delight in 
keeping us there bumping, looking at us quite calmly over the 
ship's sides, and smoked their cigars without the least attention 
to the prayers which we shrieked out for release. 

If we were glad to get away from Lisbon, we were quite as 
sorry to be obliged to quit Cadiz, which we reached the^ next 
night, and where we were allowed a couple of hours' leave to 
land and look about. It seemed as handsome within as it is 



CADIZ. 15 



stately without ; the long narrow streets of an admirable cleanli- 
ness, many of the tall houses of rich and noble decorations, and 
all looking as if the city were in full prosperity. I have seen no 
more cheerful and animated sight than the long street leading from 
the quay where we were landed, and the market blazing in sun- 
shine, piled with fruit, fish, and poultry, under many-colored 
awnings ; the tall white houses with their balconies and galleries 
shining round about, and the sky above so blue that the best 
cobalt in all the paint-box looks muddy and dim in comparison to 
it. There were pictures for a year in that market-place — from 
the copper-colored old hags and beggars who roared to you for the 
love of heaven to give money, to the swaggering dandies of the 
market, with red sashes and tight clothes, looking on superbly, 
with a hand on the hip and a cigar in the mouth. These must 
be the chief critics at the great bull-fight house yonder, by the 
Alameda, with its scanty trees and cool breezes facing the water. 
Nor are there any corks to the bulls' horns here as at Lisbon. A 
small old English guide who seized upon me the moment my foot 
was on shore, had a store of agreeable legends regarding the bulls, 
men, and horses, that had been killed with unbounded profusion in 
the late entertainments which have taken place. 

It was so early an hour in the morning that the shops were 
scarcely opened as yet ; the churches, however, stood open for 
the faithful, and we met scores of women tripping towards them 
with pretty feet, and smart black mantilla, from which looked out 
fine dark eyes and handsome pale faces, very different from the 
coarse brown countenances we had seen at Lisbon. A very hand- 
some modern cathedral, built by the present bishop at his own 
charges, was the finest of the public edifices we saw ; it was not, 
however, nearly so much frequented as another little church, 
crowded with altars and fantastic ornaments, and lights and gild- 
ing, where we were told to look behind a large iron grille, and 
beheld a bevy of black nuns kneeling. Most of the good ladies 
in the front ranks stopped their devotions, and looked at the 
strangers with as much curiosity as we directed at them through 
the gloomy bars of their chapel. The men's convents are closed ; 
that which contains the famous Murillos has been turned into an 
academy of the fine arts ; but the English guide did not think the 



16 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

pictures were of sufficient interest to detain strangers, and so hur- 
ried us back to the shore, and grumbled at only getting three 
shillings at parting for his trouble and his information. And so 
our residence in Andalusia began and ended before breakfast, and 
we went on board and steamed for Gibraltar, looking, as we past, 
at Joinville's black squadron, and the white houses of Saint 
Mary's across the bay, with the hills of Medina Sidonia and Gra- 
nada lying purple beyond them. There's something even in 
those names which is pleasant to write down ; — to have passed 
only two hours in Cadiz is something — to have seen real donnas 
with comb and mantle — real caballeros with cloak and cigar — 
real Spanish barbers lathering out of brass basins, — and to have 
heard guitars under the balconies ; there was one that an old beg- 
gar was jangling in the market, whilst a huge leering fellow in 
bushy whiskers and a faded velvet dress came singing and jump- 
ing after our party, — not singing to a guitar, it is true, but 
imitating one capitally with his voice, and cracking his fingers by 
way of castanets, and performing a dance such as Figaro or 
Lablache might envy. How clear that fellow's voice thrums on 
the ear even now ; and how bright and pleasant remains the re- 
collection of the fine city and the blue sea, and the Spanish flags 
floating on the boats that danced over it, and Joinville's band 
beginning to play stirring marches as we puffed out of the bay. 

The next stage was Gibraltar, where we were to change 
horses. Before sunset we skirted along the dark savage moun- 
tains of the African coast, and came to the Rock just before gun- 
fire. It is the very image of an enormous lion, crouched between 
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and set there to guard the 
passage for its British mistress. The next British lion is Malta, 
four days further on in the midland sea, and ready to spring upon 
Egypt or pounce upon Syria, or roar so as to be heard at Mar- 
seilles in case of need. 

To the eyes of the civilian, the first-named of these famous for- 
tifications is by far the most imposing. The Rock looks so tre- 
mendous, that to ascend it, even without the compliment of shells 
or shot, seems a dreadful task — what would it be when all those 
mysterious lines of batteries were vomiting fire and brimstone ; 



GIBRALTAR. 17 



when all those dark guns that you see poking their grim heads 
out of every imaginable cleft and zigzag should salute you with 
shot, both hot and cold ; and when, after tugging up the hideous 
perpendicular place, you were to find regiments of British grena- 
diers ready to plunge bayonets into your poor panting stomach, 
and let out artificially the little breath left there ? It is a marvel 
to think that soldiers will mount such places for a shilling — ensigns 
for five and ninepence — a day : a cabman would ask double the 
money to go half way ! One meekly reflects upon the above 
strange truths, leaning over the ship's sides, and looking up the 
huge mountain, from the tower nestled at the foot of it to the thin 
flag-staff at the summit, up to which have been piled the most 
ingenious edifices for murder Christian science ever adopted. My 
hobby-horse is a quiet beast, suited for Park riding, or a gentle 
trot to Putney and back to a snug stable, and plenty of feeds of 
corn : — it can't abide climbing hills, and is not at all used to gun- 
powder. Some men's animals are so spirited that the very ap- 
pearance of a stone wall sets them jumping at it ; regular chargers 
of hobbies, which snort and say — " Ha, ha !" at the mere notion 
of a battle. 



18 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



III. ' 

THE LADY MAKY WOOD. 

Our week's voyage is now drawing to a close. We have just 
been to look at Cape Trafalgar, shining white over the finest blue 
sea. (We, who were looking at Trafalgar Square only the other 
day !) The sight of that cape must have disgusted Joinville and 
his fleet of steamers, as they passed yesterday into Cadiz bay, and 
to-morrow will give them a sight of St. Vincent. 

One of their steam-vessels has been lost off the coast of Africa : 
they were obliged to burn her, lest the Moors should take posses- 
sion of her. She was a virgin vessel, just out of Brest. Poor 
innocent ! to die in the very first month of her union with the 
noble-whiskered god of war ! 

W^e Britons on board the English boat received the news of 
the " Groenenland's " abrupt demise with grins of satisfaction. It 
was a sort of national compliment, and cause of agreeable con- 
gratulation. " The lubbers !" we said ; "the clumsy humbugs ! 
there 's none but Britons to rule the waves !" and we gave our- 
selves piratical airs, and went down presently and were sick in 
our little buggy berths. It was pleasant, certainly, to laugh at 
Joinville's admiral's flag floating at his foremast, in yonder black 
ship, with its two thundering great guns at the bows and stern, its 
busy crew swarming on the deck, and a crowd of obsequious 
shore-boats bustling round the vessel — and to sneer at the Moga- 
dor warrior, and vow that we English, had we been inclined to 
do the business, would have performed it a great deal better. 

Now yesterday at Lisbon we saw H.M.S. " Caledonia." This, 
on the contrary, inspired us with feelings of respect and awful 
pleasure. There she lay — the huge sea-castle — bearing the un- 
conquerable flag of our country. She had but to open her jaws, 



THE CALEDONIA. 19 



as it were, and she might bring a second earthquake in the city — 
batter it into kingdom-come — with the Ajuda palace and the Ne^ 
cessidades, the churches, and the lean, dry, empty streets, and 
Don John, tremendous on horseback, in the midst of Black Horse 
Square. Wherever we looked we could see that enormous " Ca- 
ledonia," with her flashing three lines of guns. We looked at 
the little boats which ever and anon came out of this monster, with 
humble wonder. There was the lieutenant who boarded us at 
midnight before we dropped anchor in the river ; ten white-jack- 
eted men pulling as one, swept along with the barge, gig, boat, 
curricle, or coach-and-six, with which he came up to us. We 
examined him — his red whiskers — his collars turned down — his 
duck trowsers — his bullion epaulets — with awe. With the same 
reverential feeling we examined the seamen — the young gentle- 
man in the bows of the boat — the handsome young officers of ma- 
rines we met sauntering in the town next day — the Scotch sur- 
geon who boarded us as we weighed anchor — every man, down 
to the broken-nosed mariner who was drunk in a wine-house, and 
had " Caledonia " written in his hat. Whereas at the French- 
men we looked with undisguised contempt. We were ready to 
burst with laughter as we passed the Prince's vessel — there was a 
little French boy in a French boat alongside cleaning it, and 
twirling about a little French mop — we thought it the most comi- 
cal, contemptible French boy, mop, boat, steamer, prince — Psha ! 
it is of this wretched vaporing stuff that false patriotism is made. 
I write, this as a sort of homely apropos of the day, and Cape 
Trafalgar, off which we lie. What business have I to strut the 
deck, and clap my wings, and cry " cock-a-doodle-doo " over it ? 
Some compatriots are at that work even now. 

We have lost one by one all our jovial company. There were 
the five Oporto wine merchants — all hearty English gentlemen — 
gone to their wine-butts, and their red-legged partridges, and their 
duels at Oporto. It appears that these gallant Britons fight every 
morning among themselves, and give the benighted people among 
whom they live an opportunity to admire the spirit national. 
There is the brave, honest major, with his wooden-leg — the kind- 
est and simplest of Irishmen : he has embraced his children, and 
reviewed his little invalid garrison of fifteen men, in the fort which. 



20 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

he commands at Belem, by this time, and, I have no doubt, played 
to every soul of them the twelve tunes of his musical-box. It 
was pleasant to see him with that musical-box — how pleased he 
wound it up after dinner — how happily he listened to the little 
clinking tunes as they galloped, ding-ding, after each other. A 
man who carries a musical box is always a good-natured man. 

Then there was his grace, or his grandeur, the Archbishop of 
Beyrouth (in the parts of the infidels), his Holiness's Nuncio to 
the court of her most faithful Majesty, and who mingled among 
us like any simple mortal, — except that he had an extra smiling 
courtesy, which simple mortals do not always possess ; and when 
you passed him as such, and puffed your cigar in his face, took 
off his hat with a grin of such prodigious rapture, as lo lead you 
to suppose that the most delicious privilege of his whole life, was 
that permission to look at the tip of your nose or of your cigar. 
With this most reverend prelate was his grace's brother and 
chaplain — a very greasy and good-natured ecclesiastic, whom, 
from his physiognomy, I would have imagined to be a dignitary 
of the Israelitish rather than the Romish church — as profuse in 
smiling courtesy as his lordship of Beyrouth. These two had a 
meek little secretary between them, and a tall French cook and 
valet, who, at meal times, might be seen busy about the cabin 
where their reverences lay. They were on their backs for the 
greater part of the voyage ; their yellow countenances were not 
only unshaven, but, to judge from appearances, unwashed. They 
ate in private ; and it was only of evenings, as the sun was jet- 
ting over the western wave, and, comforted by the dinner, the 
cabin passengers assembled on the quarter-deck, that we saw the 
dark faces of the reverend gentlemen among us for a while. 
They sunk darkly into their berths when the steward's bell tolled 
for tea. 

At Lisbon, where we came to anchor at midnight, a special 
boat came off, whereof the crew exhibited every token of reve- 
rence for the ambassador of heaven, and carried him off from 
our company. This abrupt departure in the darkness disap- 
pointed some of us, who had promised ourselves the pleasure of 
seeing His Grandeur depart in state in the morning, shaved, clean, 
and in full pontificals, the tripping little secretary swinging an 



BISHOP NO. 2. 21 



incense-pot before him, and the greasy chaplain bearing his 
crosier. 

Next day we had another bishop, who occupied the very same 
berth his grace of Beyrouth had quitted — was sick in the very 
same way — so much so that this cabin of the " Lady Mary 
Wood " is to be christened " the bishop's berth " henceforth ; and 
a handsome mitre is to be painted on the basin. 

Bishop No. 2 was a very stout, soft, kind-looking old gentle- 
man, in a square cap, with a handsome tassel of green and gold 
round his portly breast and back. He was dressed in black robes, 
and tight purple stockings : and we carried him from Lisbon to 
the little flat coast of Faro, of which the meek old gentleman was 
the chief pastor. 

We had not been half an hour from our anchorage in the Ta- 
gus, when his lordship dived down into the episcopal berth. All 
that night there was a good smart breeze ; it blew fresh all the 
next day, as we went jumping over the blue bright sea ; and 
there was no sign of his lordship the bishop until we were oppo- 
site the pui^le hills of Algarve, which lay at some ten miles dis- 
tant, — a yellow sunny shore stretching flat before them, whose 
long sandy flats and villages we could see with our telescopes 
from the steamer. 

Presently a little vessel, with a huge shining lateen sail, and 
bearing the blue and white Portuguese flag, was seen playing a 
sort of leap frog on the jolly waves, jumping over them, and 
ducking down as merry as could be. This little boat came 
towards the steamer as quick as ever she could jump ; and Cap- 
tain Cooper roaring out, " Stop her !" to " Lady Mary Wood," 
her ladyship's paddles suddenly ceased twirling, and news was 
carried to the good bishop in the berth, that his boat was almost 
alongside, and that his hour was come. 

It was rather an affecting sight to see the poor old fat gentle- 
man, looking wistfully over the water as the boat now came up, 
and her eight seamen, with great noise, energy, and gesticulation, 
laid her by the steamer. The steamer steps were let down ; his 
lordship's servant in blue and yellow livery, like the (Edinburgh 
Review), cast over the episcopal luggage into the boat, along 
with his own bundle and the jack-boots with which he rides 



22 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

postillion on one of the bishop's fat mules at Faro. The blue 
and yellow domestic went down the steps into the boat. Then 
came the bishop's turn ; but he couldn't do it for a long while. 
He went from one passenger to another, sadly shaking them by 
the hand, often taking leave and seeming loth to depart, until 
Captain Cooper, in a stern but respectful tone, touched him on 
the shoulder, and said, I know not with what correctness, being 
ignorant of the Spanish language, " Senor Bispo ! Senor Bispo !" 
on which summons the poor old man, looking ruefully round him 
once more, put his square cap under his arm, tucked up his 
long black petticoats, so as to show his purple stockings and 
jolly fat calves, and went trembling down the steps towards 
the boat. The good old man ! I wish I had had a shake of that 
trembling, podgy hand somehow before he went upon his sea 
martyrdom. I felt a love for that soft-hearted old Christian. 
Ah ! let us hope his governante tucked him comfortably in bed 
when he got to Faro that night, and made him a warm gruel 
and put his feet in warm water. The men clung around him, 
and almost kissed him as they popped him into the boat, but 
he did not heed their caresses. Away went the boat scudding 
madly before the winds. Bang! another lateen-sailed, boat in 
the distance fired a gun in his honor ; but the wind was blow- 
ing away from the shore, and who knows when that meek bishop 
got home to his gruel ? 

I think these were the notables of our party. I will not men- 
tion the laughing, ogling lady of Cadiz, whose manners, I very 
much regret to say, were a great deal too lively for my sense of 
propriety ; nor those fair sufferers, her companions, who lay on 
the deck with sickly, smiling, female resignation ; nor the heroic 
children, who no sooner eat biscuit than they were ill, and no 
sooner were ill than they began eating biscuit again ; but just 
allude to one other martyr, the kind lieutenant in charge of the 
mails, and who bore his cross with what I can't but think a very 
touching and noble resignation. 

There's a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is dis- 
appointment, — who excels in it, — and whose luckless triumphs in 
his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded 
by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid sue- 



THE MEEK LIEUTENANT. 23 

cesses and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men. 
As I sat with the lieutenant upon deck, his telescope laid over 
his lean legs, and he looking at the sunset with a pleased, withered 
old face, he gave me a little account of his history. I take it he 
is in no wise disinclined to talk about it, simple as it is : he 
has been seven-and-thirty years in the navy, being somewhat 
more mature in the service than Lieutenant Peel, Rear-Admiral 
Prince de Joinville, and other commanders, who need not be men- 
tioned. He is a very well-educated man and reads prodigiously, — 
travels, histories, lives of eminent worthies and heroes, in his 
simple way. He is not in the least angry at his want of luck in 
the profession. " Were I a boy to-morrow," he said, " I would 
begin it again ; and when I see my schoolfellows, and how they 
have got on in life, if some are better off than I am, I find many 
are worse, and have no call to be discontented." So he carries 
her Majesty's mails meekly through this world, waits upon port- 
admirals and captains in his old glazed hat, and is as proud of the 
pennon at the bow of his little boat, as if it were flying from the 
mainmast of a thundering man-of-war. He gets two hundred a 
year for his services, and has an old mother and a sister, living 
in England somewhere, who I will wager (though he never, I 
swear, said a word about it) have a good portion of this princely 
" income. 

Is it breaking a confidence to tell Lieutenant Bundy's history ? 
Let the motive excuse the deed. It is a good, kind, wholesome 
noble character. Why should we keep all our admiration for 
those who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are ? 
When we write a novel, our great, stupid imaginations can go no 
further than to marry the hero to a fortune at the end, and to find 
out that he is a lord by right. Oh, blundering lick-spittle 
morality ! And yet I would like to fancy some happy retributive 
Utopia in the peaceful cloudland, where my friend the meek 
lieutenant should find the yards manned of his ship as he went on 
board, all the guns firing an enormous salute (only without the 
least noise or vile smell of powder), and he be saluted on the 
deck as Admiral Sir James, or Sir Joseph — aye, or Lord Viscount 
Bundy, knight of all the orders above the sun. 

I think this is a sufficient, if not a complete catalogue, of the 



24 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

worthies on board the " Lady Mary Wood." In the week we 
were on board — it seemed a year, by the way — we come to 
regard the ship quite as a home. We felt for the captain — the 
most good-humored, active, careful, ready of captains — a filial, a 
fraternal regard ; for the providore, who provided for us with 
admirable comfort and generosity, a genial gratitude ; and for the 
brisk steward's lads — brisk in serving the banquet, sympathizing 
in handing the basin — every possible sentiment of regard and 
good will. What winds blew, and how many knots we ran, are 
all noted down, no doubt, in the ship's log ; and as for what ships 
we saw — every one of them with their gunnage, tonnage, their 
nation, their direction whither they were bound, were not these 
all noted down with surprising ingenuity and precision by the 
lieutenant, at a family desk at which he sate, every night before 
a great paper, elegantly and mysteriously ruled off with his large 
ruler ? I have a regard for every man on board that ship, from 
the captain down to the . crew — down even to the cook, with 
tattooed arms, sweating among the saucepans in the galley, who 
used (with a touching affection) to send us locks of his hair in 
the soup. And so, while our feeling and recollections are warm, 
let us shake hands with this knot of good fellows, comfortably 
floating about in tlreir little box of wood and iron, across Channel, 
Biscay Bay, and the Atlantic, from Southampton water to 
Gibraltar Straits. 



GIBRALTAR. 25 



IV. 

GIBRALTAR . 

Suppose all the nations of the earth to send fitting ambassadors 
to represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each, 
under its own national sign-board and language, its appropriate 
house of call, and your imagination may figure the main street 
of Gibraltar ; almost the only part of the town, I believe, which 
boasts of the name of street at all, the remaining house-rows being 
modestly called lanes, such as Bomb-lane, Battery-lane, Fusee- 
lane, and so on. In Main-street the Jews predominate, the Moors^ 
abound ; and from the Jolly Sailor, or the Brave Horse Marine, 
where the people of our own nation are drinking British beer and 
gin, you hear choruses of" Garry Owen " or " The Lass I left 
behind me ;" while through the flaring lattices of the Spanish 
ventas come the clatter of castanets and the jingle and moan of 
Spanish guitars and ditties. It is a curious sight at evening this 
thronged street, with the people in a hundred different costumes 
bustling to and fro under the coarse flare of the lamps ; swarthy 
Moors, in white or crimson robes ; dark Spanish smugglers in 
tufted hats, with gay silk handkerchiefs round their heads ; fud- 
dled seamen from men-of-war, or merchantmen ; porters, Galli- 
cian and Genoese ; and at every few minutes' interval, little 
squads of soldiers tramping to relieve guard at some one of the' 
innumerable posts in the town. 

Some of our party went to a Spanish venta, as a more convenient 
or romantic place of residence than an English house ; others 
made choice of the club-house in Commercial-square, of which I 
formed an agreeable picture in my imagination ; rather, perhaps, 
resembling the Junior United Service Club in Charles-street, by 
which every Londoner has passed ere this with respectful plea- 
sure, catching glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, undey 

3 



26 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

which sit neat half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The 
club-house of Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles?street sort; 
it may have been cheerful once, and there are yet relics of splen- 
dor about it. When officers wore pig-tails, and in the time of 
Governor O'Hara, it may have been a handsome place ; but it is 
mouldy and decrepit now ; and though his Excellency Mr. Bulwer 
was living there, and made no complaints that I heard of, other 
less distinguished persons thought they had reason to grumble. 
Indeed, what is travelling made of? At least half its pleasures 
and incidents come out of inns ; and of themi the tourist can speak 
with much more truth and vivacity than of historical recollections 
compiled out of histories, or filched out of hand-books. But to 
speak of the best inn in a place needs no apology; that, at least, 
is useful informiation ; as every person intending to visit Gibraltar 
cannot have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, 
who fled from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the 
^morning after our arrival : they may surely be thankful for being 
directed to the best house of accommodation in one of the most 
unromantic, uncomfortable, and prosaic of towns. 

If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the 
mahogany, I could entertain you with many queer stories of 
Gibraltar life, gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who 
enjoyed themselves round the dingy table cloth of the club-house 
coffee- room, richly decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer. I 
heard there the very names of the gentlemen who wrote the famous 
letters from the Warspite regarding the French proceedings at 
Mogador ; and met several refugee Jews from that place, who 
said that they were much more afraid of the Kabyles without the 
city, than of the guns of the French squadron, of which they 
seemed to make rather light. I heard the last odds on the ensu- 
ing match between Captain Smith's b. g. Bolter, and Captain 
Brovvn's ch. c. Roarer: how the gun room of her Majesty's ship 
Purgatory had "cobbed" a tradesman of the town, and of the 
row in consequence : I heard capital stories of the way in which 
Wilkins had escaped the guard, and Thompson had been locked 
up among the mosquitoes for being out after ten, without a lantern. 

I heard how the governor was an old , but to say what, 

would be breaking a confidence ; only this may be divulged, that 



GIBRALTAR. 27 



the epithet was exceedingly complimentary to Sir Robert Wilson. 
All the while these conversations were going on, a strange scene 
of noise and bustle was passing in the market-place, in front of 
the window, where Moors, Jews, Spaniards, soldiers, were throng- 
ing in the sun ; and a ragged fat fellow, mounted on a tobacco 
barrel, with his bat cocked on his ear, Vv'as holding an auction, 
and roaring with an energy and impudence that would have done 
credit to Covent Garden. 

The Moorish castle is the only building about the Rock which 
has an air at all picturesque or romantic ; there is a plain Roman 
Catholic cathedral, a hideous new Protestant church of the cigar- 
divan architecture, and a Court-house with a portico which is 
said to be an imitation of the Parthenon : the ancient religious 
houses of the Spanish town are gone, or turned into military resi- 
dences, and marked so that you would never know their former 
pious destination. You walk through narrow white-washed lanes, 
bearing such martial names as are before-mentioned, and by- 
streets with barracks on either side ; small Newgate-like looking 
buildings, at the doors of which you may see the Serjeants' ladies 
conversing, or at the open windows of the officers' quarters, 
Ensign Fipps lying on his sofa and smoking his cigar, or Lieuten- 
ant Simson practising the flute to while away the weary hours of 
garrison dulness. I was surprised not to find more persons in the 
garrison library, where is a magnificent reading-room, and an 
admirable collection of books. 

In spite of the scanty herbage and the dust on the trees, the 
Alameda is a beautiful walk ; of which the vegetation has been 
as laboriously cared for as the tremendous fortifications which 
flank it on either side. The vast rock rises on one side with its 
interminable works of defence, and Gibraltar Bay is shining on 
the other, out on which from the terraces immense cannon are 
perpetually looking, surrounded by plantations of cannon balls 
and beds of bomb shells, sufficient, one would think, to blow away 
the whole Peninsula. The horticultural and military mixture is 
indeed very queer : here and there temples, rustic summer seats, 
&c., have been erected in the garden, but you are sure to see a 
great squat mortar looking up from among the flower-pots ; and 
amidst the aloes and geranium sprouts the green petticoat and 



28 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



scarlet coat of a Highlander ; fatigue parties are seen winding up 
the hill, and busy about the endless cannon-ball plantations ; 
awkward squads are drilling in the open spaces ; sentries march- 
ing everywhere, and (this is a caution to artists) I am told have 
orders to run any man through who is discovered making a sketch 
of the place. It is always beautiful, especially at evening, when 
the people are sauntering along the walks, and the moon is shining 
on the waters of the bay and the hills and twinkling white houses 
of the opposite shore. Then the place becomes quite romantic : 
it is too dark to see the dust on the dried leaves; the cannon- 
balls do not intrude too much, but have subsided into the shade ; 
the awkward squads are in bed ; even the loungers are gone, the 
fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the 
trim white-jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at 
roost on the quiet waters somewhere ; or a faint cheer from yonder 
black steamer at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night 
expedition. You forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and 
deliver yourself up entirely to romance ; the sentries look noble 
pacing there, silent in the moonlight, and Sandy's voice is quite 
musical, as he challenges with a " Who- goes there ?" 

" All's Well" is very pleasant when sung decently in tune ; 
and inspires noble and poetic ideas of duty, courage, and danger : 
but when you hear it shouted all the night through, accompanied 
by a clapping of muskets in a time of profound peace, the sen- 
tinel's cry becomes no more romantic to the hearer than it is to 
the sandy Connaught-man or the bare-legged Highlander who 
delivers it. It is best to read about wars comfortably in Harry 
Lorrequer or Scott's novels, in which knights shout their war 
cries, and jovial Irish bayoneteers hurrah, without depriving you 
of any blessed rest. Men of a different way of thinking, however, 
can suit themselves perfectly at Gibraltar; where there is march- 
ing and counter-marching, challenging and relieving guard all the 
night through. And not here in Commercial-square alone, but all 
over the huge rock in the darkness — all through the mysterious 
zig-zags, and round the dark cannon-ball pyramids, and along 
the vast rock-galleries, and up to the topmost flagstaff where the 
sentry can look out over two seas, poor fellows are marching and 
clapping muskets, and crying " All's well," dressed in cap and 



A GARRISON TOWN AT NIGHT. 29 

feather, in place of honest nightcaps best befitting the decent hours 
of sleep. 

All these martial noises three of us heard to the utmost advan- 
tage, lying on iron bedsteads at the time in a cracked old room 
on the ground-floor, the open windows of which looked into the 
square. No spot could be more favorably selected for watching 
the humors of a garrison-town by night. About midnight, the 
door hard by us was visited by a party of young officers, who 
having had quite as much drink as was good for them, were 
naturally inclined for more; and when we remonstrated through 
the windows, one of them in a young tipsy voice asked after our 
mothers, and finally reeled away. How charming is the conver- 
sation of high spirited youth ! I don't know whether the guard 
got hold of them : but certainly if a civilian had been hiccuping 
through the street at that hour he would have been carried off to 
the guard-house, and left to the mercy of the musquitoes there, 
and had up before the governor in the morning. The young men 
in the coffee-room tell me he goes to sleep every night with the 
keys of Gibraltar under his pillow. It is an awful image, and 
somehow completes the notion of the slumbering fortress. Fancy 
Sir Robert Wilson, his nose just visible over the sheets, his night- 
cap and the huge key (you see the very identical one in 
Reynolds's portrait of Lord Heathfield) peeping out from under the 
bolster ! 

If I entertain you with accounts of inns and nightcaps it is be- 
cause I am more familiar with these subjects than with history 
and fortifications : as far as I can understand the former, Gibral- 
tar is the great British depot for smuggling goods into the Penin- 
sula. You see vessels lying in the harbor, and are told in so 
many words they are smugglers ; all those smart Spaniards with 
cigar and mantles are smugglers, and run tobaccos and cotton 
into Catalonia ; all the respected merchants of the place are 
smugglers. The other day a Spanish revenue vessel was shot to 
death under the thundering great guns of the fort, for neglecting 
to bring to, but it so happened that it was in chase of a smuggler ; 
in this little corner of her dominions Britain proclaims war to 
custom-houses, and protection to free-trade. Perhaps ere a very 



30 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

long day, England may be acting that part towards the world; 
which Gibraltar performs towards Spain now ; and the last war 
in which we shall ever engage may be a custom-house war. For 
once establish railroads and abolish preventive duties through 
Europe, and what is there left to fight for ? It will matter very 
little then under v/hat flag people live, and foreigu ministers and 
ambassadors may enjoy a dignified sinecure ; the army will rise 
to the rank of peaceful constables, not having any more use for 
the bayonet than those worthy people have for their weapons now 
who accompany the law at assizes under the name of javelin-men. 
The apparatus of bombs and eighty-four pounders may disappear 
from the Alameda, and the crops of cannon-balls which now grow 
there, may give place to other plants more pleasant to the eye ; 
and the great key of Gibraltar may be left in the gate for any- 
body to turn at will, and Sir Robert Wilson may sleep in quiet. 

I am afraid I thought it was rather a release, when, having 
made up our minds to examine the rock in detail and view the 
magnificent excavations and galleries, the admiration of all mili- 
tary men, and the terror of any enemies who may attack the for- 
tress, we received orders to embark forthwith in the " Tagus,'"' 
which was to carry us to Malta and Constantinople. So we took 
leave of this famous rock — this great blunderbuss — which we 
seized out of the hands of the natural owners a hundred and forty 
years ago, and which we have kept ever since tremendously 
loaded and cleaned and ready for use. To seize and have it is 
doubtless a gallant thing ; it is like one of those tests of courage 
which one reads of in the chivalrous romances, when, for instance, 
Sir Huon, of Bordeaux, is called on to prove his knighthood by 
going to Babylon and pulling out the Sultan's beard and front 
teeth in the midst of his court there. 

But, after all, justice must confess it was rath.er hard on the 
poor Sultan. If we had the Spaniards established at Land's-End, 
with impregnable Spanish fortifications on St. Michael's IMount, 
we should perhaps come to the same conclusion. Meanwhile, let 
us hope during this long period of deprivation, the Sultan of 
Spain is reconciled to the loss of his front teeth and bristling 
whiskers — let us even try to think that he is better without them. 
At all events, right or wrong, whatever may be our title to the 



GIBRALTAR. 31 



property, there is no Englishman but must think with pride of the 
manner in which his countrymen have kept it, and of the courage, 
endurance, and sense of duty with which stout old Eliot and his 
companions resisted Crillon and the Spanish battering ships and 
his fifty thousand men. There seems to be something more noble 
in the success of a gallant resistance than of an attack, however 
brave. After failing in his attack on the fort, the French Gene- 
ral visited the English Commander who had foiled him, and 
parted from him and his garrison in perfect politeness and good 
humor. The English troops, Drinkwater says, gave him thun- 
dering cheers as he went away, and the French in return com- 
plimented us on our gallantry, and lauded the humanity of our 
people. If we are to go on murdering each other in the old- 
fashioned way, what a pity it is that our battles cannot end in the 
old-fashioned way too ! 

One of our fellow-travellers, who had written a book, and had 
suffered considerably from sea-sickness during our passage along 
the coasts of France and' Spain, consoled us all by saying that 
the very minute we got into the Mediterranean we might con- 
sider ourselves entirely free from illness ; and, in fact, that it was 
unheard of in the inland sea. Even in the Bay of Gibraltar the 
water looked bluer than anything I have ever* seen — except Miss 
Smith's eyes. I thought, somehow, the delicious faultless azure 
never could look angry — ^^just like the eyes before alluded to — 
and under this assurance we passed the Strait, and began coast- 
ing the African shore calmly and without the least apprehension, 
as if we were as much used to the tempest as Mr. T. P. Cooke. 

But when, in spite of the promise of the man who had written 
the book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the 
Bay of Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set 
down the author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind 
to quarrel with him for leading us into this cruel error. The 
most provoking part of the matter, too, was, that the sky was 
deliciously clear and cloudless, the air balmy, the sea so insult- 
ingly blue that it seemed as if we had no right to be ill at all, and 
that the innumerable little waves that frisked round about our 
keel were enjoying an anerithmon gelasma (this is one of my four 
Greek quotations ; depend on it, I will manage to introduce the 



32 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

other three before the tour is done) — seemed to be enjoying, I 
say, the above-named Greeli: quotation at our expense. Here is 
the dismal log of Wednesday, 4th of September : — " All attempts 
at dining very fruitless. Basins in requisition. Wind hard 
ahead. Que diahle allais je faire dans cette galere ? Writing or 
thinking impossible, so read letters from the jEgean." These 
brief words give, I think, a complete idea of wretchedness, des- 
pair, remorse, and prostration of soul and body. Two days pre- 
viously we passed the forts and moles and yellow buildings of 
Algiers, rising very stately from the sea, and skirted by gloomy 
purple lines of African shore, with fires smokmg in the mountains 
and lonely settlements here and there. 

On the 5th, to the inexpressible joy of all, we reached Valetta, 
the entrance to the harbor of which is one of the most stately and 
agreeable scenes ever admired by sea-sick traveller. The small 
basin was busy with a hundred ships, from the huge guard ship, 
which lies there a city in itself; — merchantmen loading and crews 
cheering, under all the flags of the world flaunting in the sun- 
shine ; a half-score of busy black steamers perpetually coming 
and going, coaling and painting, and puffing and hissing in and 
out of harbor ; slim men-of-war's barges shooting to and fro, with 
long shining oars flashing like wings over the water ; hundreds 
of painted town boats, with high heads and white awnings, — down 
to the little tubs in which some naked, tawny young beggars came 
paddling up to the steamer, entreating us to le<? them dive for 
halfpence. Round this busy blue water rise rocks, blazing in 
sunshine, and covered with every imaginable device of fortifica- 
tion : to the right, St. Elmo, with flag and light-house ; and oppo- 
site, the Military Hospital, looking like a palace ; and all round, 
the houses of the city, for its siz»the handsomest and most stately 
in the world. 

Nor does it disappoint you on a closer inspection, as many a 
foreign town does. The streets are thronged with a lively, com- 
fortable looking population ; the poor seem to inhabit handsome 
stone palaces, with balconies and projecting windows of heavy 
carved stone. The lights and shadows, the cries and stenches, 
the fruit shops and fish stalls, the dresses and chatter of all na- 
tions ; the soldiers in scarlet, and women in black mantillas ; the 



MALTA 33 



beggars, boatmen, barrels of pickled herrings and maccaroni ; the 
shovel-hatted priests and bearded capuchins ; the tobacco, grapes, 
onions, and sunshine ; the sign-boards, bottle-porter stores, the 
statues of saints and little chapels which jostle the stranger's eyes 
as he goes up the famous stairs from the water-gate, make a scene 
of such pleasant confusion and liveliness as I have never wit- 
nessed before. And the effect of the groups of multitudinous 
actors in this busy, cheerful drama, is heightened, as it were, by 
the decorations of the stage. The sky is delightfully brilliant ; 
all the houses and ornaments are stately ; castles and palaces are 
rising all around ; and the flag, towers and walls of Fort St. Elmo 
look as fresh and magnificent as if they had been -erected only 
yesterday. 

The Strada Reale has a much more courtly appearance than 
that one described. Here are palaces, churches, court-houses 
and libraries, the genteel London shops, and the latest articles ot 
perfumery. Gay young officers are strolling about in shell 
jackets much too small for them ; midshipmen are clattering by 
on hired horses ; squads of priests, habited after the fashion of 
Don Basilio in the opera, are demurely pacing to and fro ; pro- 
fessional beggars run shrieking after the stranger ; and agents 
for horses, for inns, and for worse places still, follow him and in- 
sinuate the excellence of their goods. The houses where they 
are selling carpet-bags and pomatum were the palaces of the suc- 
cessors of the goodliest company of gallant knights the world ever 
heard tell of. It seems unromantic ; but these were not the ro- 
mantic knights of St. John. The heroic days of the order ended 
as the last Turkish galley lifted anchor after the memorable siege. 
The present stately houses were built in times of peace and splen- 
dor and decay. I doubt whether the " Auberge de Provence," 
where the Union Club flourishes now, has ever seen anything 
more romantic than the pleasant balls held in the great room 
there. 

The church of Saint John, not a handsome structure without, 
is magnificent within : a noble hall covered with a rich embroidery 
of gilded carving, the chapels of the different nations on either 
side, but not interfering with the main structure, of which the 
whole is simple, and the details only splendid ; it seemed to me a 
3* 



34 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

fitting place for this wealthy body of aristocratic soldiers, who 
made their devotions as it were on parade, and though on their 
knees, never forgot their epaulets or their quarters of nobility. 
This mixture of religion and worldly pride seems incongruous at 
first ; but have we not at church at home similar relics of feudal 
ceremony ? — the verger with the silver mace who precedes the 
vicar to the desk ; the two chaplains of my lord archbishop, who 
bow over his grace as he enters the communion-table gate ; even 
poor John, who follows my lady with her coronetted prayer-book, 
and makes his covge, as he hands it into the pew. What a chival- 
rous absurdity is the banner of some high and mighty prince, 
hanging over his stall in Windsor Chapel, when you think of the 
purpose for which men are supposed to assemble there ! The 
church of the knights of St. John is paved over with sprawling 
heraldic devices of the dead gentlemen of the dead order ; as if, 
in the next world, they expected to take rank in conformity with 
their pedigrees, and would be marshalled into heaven according 
to the orders of precedence. Cumbrous handsome paintings adorn 
the walls and chapels, decorated with pompous monuments of grand 
masters. Beneath is a crypt, where more of these honorable and 
reverend warriors lie, in a state that a Simpson would admire. 
In the altar are said to lie three of the most gallant relics in the 
world : the keys of Acre, Rhodes, and Jerusalem. What blood 
was shed in defending these emblems ! What faith, endurance, 
genius, and generosity ; what pride, hatred, ambition, and savage 
lust of blood were roused together for their guardianship ! 

In the lofty halls and corridors of the governor's house, some 
portraits of the late grand masters still remain ; a very fine one, 
by Caravaggio, of a knight in gilt armor, hangs in the dining- 
room, near a full-length of poor Louis XVL, in royal robes, the 
very picture of uneasy impotency. But the portrait of Vigna- 
court is the only one which has a respectable air ; the other chiefs 
of the famous society are pompous old gentlemen in black, with 
huge periwigs, and crowns round their hats, and a couple of me- 
lancholy pages in yellow and red. But pages and wigs and 
grand masters have almost faded out of the canvas, and are 
vanishing into Hades with a most melancholy indistinctness. 
The names of most of these gentlemen, however, live as yet in 



MALTA RELICS. 35 



the forts of the place, which all seem to have been eager to build 
and christen : so that it seems as if, in the Malta mythology, they 
had been turned into freestone. 

In the armory is the very suit painted by Caravaggio, by the 
side of the armor of the noble old La Valette, whose heroism saved 
his island from the efforts of Mustapha and Dragut, and an army 
quite as fierce and numerous as that which was baffled before 
Gibraltar, by similar courage and resolution. The sword of the 
last-named famous corsair (a most truculent little scimitar), thou- 
sands of pikes and halberts, little old cannons and wall pieces, 
helmets and cuirasses, which the knights or their people wore, 
are trimly arranged against the wall, and, instead of spiking 
Turks or arming warriors, now serve to point morals and adorn 
tales. And here likewise are kept many thousand muskets, 
swords, and boarding pikes, for daily use, and a couple of ragged 
old standards of one of the English regiments, who pursued and 
conquered in Egypt the remains of the haughty and famous 
French republican army, at whose appearance the last knights 
of Malta flung open the gates of all their fortresses, and consented 
to be extinguished without so much as a remonstrance, or a kick, 
or a struggle. 

We took a drive into what may be called the country ; where 
the fields are rocks, and the hedges are stones — passing by the 
stone gardens of the Florian, and wondering at the number and 
handsomeness of the stone villages and churches rising every- 
where among the stony hills. Handsome villas were passed 
everywhere, and we drove for a long distance along the sides of 
an aqueduct, quite a royal work of the Caravaggio in gold armor, 
the grand master De Vignacourt. A most agreeable contrast to 
the arid rocks of the general scenery, was the garden at the gover- 
nor's country house ; with the orange- trees and water, its beauti- 
ful golden grapes, luxuriant flowers, and thick cool shrubberies. 
The eye longs for this sort of refreshment, after being seared with 
the hot glare of the general country ; and St. Antonio was as 
pleasant after Malta, as Malta was after the sea. 

We paid the island a subsequent 'visit in November, passing 
seventeen days at an establishment called Fort Manuel there, 
and by punsters the Manuel des Voyageurs ; where government 



36 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

accommodates you with quarters ; where the authorities are so 
attentive as to scent your letters with aromatic vinegar before you 
receive them, and so careful of your health as to lock you up in 
your room every night lest you should walk in your sleep, and so 
over the battlements into the sea ; if you escaped drowning in 
the sea, the sentries on the opposite shore would fire at you, hence 
the nature of the precaution. To drop, however, this satirical strain ; 
those who know what a quarantine is, may fancy that the place some- 
how becomes unbearable in which it has been endured. And though 
the November climate of Malta is like the most delicious May in 
England, and though there is every gaiety and amusement in the 
town, a comfortable little opera, a good old library filled full of 
good old books (none of your works of modern science, travel, 
and history, but good old useless books of the last two centuries), 
and nobody to trouble you in reading them ; and though the 
society of Valetta is most hospitable, varied, and agreeable, yet 
somehow one did not feel safe in the island, with perpetual glimpses 
of Fort Manuel from the opposite shore ; and, lest the quarantine 
authorities should have a fancy to fetch one back again, on a 
pretext of posthumous plague, we made our way to Naples by the 
very first opportunity — ^those who remained, that is, of the little 
Eastern expedition. They were not all there. The Giver of 
life and death had removed two of our company : one was left 
behind to die in Egypt, with a mother to bewail his loss ; another 
we buried in the dismal lazaretto cemetery. 

***** 

One is bound to look at this, too, as a part of our journey. 
Disease and death are knocking perhaps at your next cabin-door. 
Your kind and cheery companion has ridden his last ride and 
emptied his last glass beside you. And while fond hearts are 
yearning for him far away, and- his own mind, if conscious, is 
turning eagerly towards the spot of the world whither affection or 
interest call it — the Great Father summons the anxious spirit from 
earth to himself, and ordains that the nearest and dearest shall 
meet here no more. 

Such an occurrence as a death in a lazaretto, mere selfishness 
renders striking. We were walking with him but two days ago 
on deck. One has a sketch of him, another his card, with the 



DEATH IN THE LAZARETTO. 37 

address written yesterday, and given with an invitation to come 
and see him at home in the country, where his children are look- 
ing for him. He is dead in a day, and buried in the walls of the 
prison. A doctor felt his pulse by deputy — a clergyman comes 
from the town to read the last service over him — and the friends, 
who attend his funeral, are marshalled by lazaretto-guardians, so 
as not to touch each other. Every man goes back to his room 
and applies the lesson to himself. One would not so depart with- 
out seeing again the dear, dear faces. We reckon up those we 
love ; they are but very few, but I think one loves them better 
than ever now. Should it be your turn next? — and why not? 
Is it pity or comfort to think of that affection which watches and 
survives you ? 

The Maker has linked together the whole race of man with this 
chain of love. I like to think that there is no man but has had 
kindly feelings for some other, and he for his neighbor, until we 
bind together the whole family of Adam. Nor does it end here. 
It joins heaven and earth together. For my friend or my child 
of past days is still my friend or my child to me here, or in the 
home prepared for us by the Father of all. If identity survives 
the grave, as our faith tells us, is it not a consolation to think that 
there may be one or two souls among the purified and just, whose 
affection watches us invisible, and follows the poor sinner on 
earth ? 



38 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



V. 



ATHENS. 



Not feeling any enthusiasm myself about Athens, my bounden 
duty of course is clear, to sneer and laugh heartily at all who 
have. In fact, what business has a lawyer, who was in Pump- 
court this day three weeks, and whose common reading is law 
reports or the newspaper, to pretend to fall in love for the long 
vacation with mere poetry, of which I swear a great deal is very 
doubtful, and to get up an enthusiasm quite foreign to his nature 
and usual calling in life ? What call have ladies to consider 
Greece " romantic," they who get their notions of mythology 
from the well-known pages of " Tooke's Pantheon ?" What is 
the reason that blundering Yorkshire squires, young dandies from 
Corfu regiments, jolly sailors from ships in the harbor, and yellow 
old Indians returning from Bundelcund, should think proper to be 
enthusiastic about a country of which they know nothing ; the 
mere physical beauty of which they cannot, for the most part, 
comprehend ; and because certain characters lived in it two thou- 
sand four hundred years ago 1 What have these people in com- 
mon with Pericles, what have these ladies in common with Aspasia 
(O fie) ? Of the race of Englishmen who come wondering about 
the tomb of Socrates, do you think the majority would not have 
voted to hemlock him ? Yes ; for the very same superstition 
which leads men by the nose now, drove them onward in the days 
when the lowly husband of Xantippe died for daring to think 
simply and to speak the truth. I know of no quality more mag- 
nificent in fools than their faith ; that perfect consciousness they 
have, that they are doing virtuous and meritorious actions, when 
they are performing acts of folly, murdering Socrates, or pelting 
Aristides with holy oyster shells, all for Virtue's sake ; and a 
" History of Dulness in all Ages of the World," is a book which 



ATHENS. 39 



a philosopher would surely be hanged, but as certainly blessed, 
for writing. 

If papa and mamma (honor be to them !) had not followed the 
faith of their fathers, and thought proper to send away their only 
beloved son (afterwards to be celebrated under the name of Tit- 
marsh) into ten years' banishment of infernal misery, tyranny, 
annoyance ; to give over the fresh feelings of the heart of the 
little Michael Angelo to the discipline of vulgar bullies, who, in 
order to lead tender young children to the Temple of Learning 
(as they do in the spelling-books), drive them on with clenched 
fists and low abuse ; if they fainted, revived them with a thump, 
or assailed them with a curse ; if they were miserable, consoled 
them with a brutal jeer — if, I say, my dear parents, instead of 
giving me the inestimable benefit of a ten years' classical edu- 
cation, had kept me at home with my dear thirteen sisters, it is 
probable I should have liked this country of Attica, in sight of 
the blue shores of which the present pathetic letter is written : but 
I was made so miserable in my youth by a classical education, 
that all connected with it is disagreeable in my eyes ; and I have 
the same recollection of Greek in youth that I have of castor 
oil. 

So in coming in sight of the promontory of Sunium, where the 
Greek muse, in an awful vision, came to me, and said in a pa- 
tronizing way, " Why, my dear " (she always, the old spinster, 
adopts this high and mighty tone), " Why, my dear, are you not 
charmed to be in this famous neighborhood, in this land of poets 
and heroes, of whose history your classical education ought to 
have made you a master ? If it did not, you have wofully neg- 
lected your opportunities, and your dear parents have wasted 
their money in sending you to school." I replied, " Madam, 
your company in youth was made so laboriously disagreeable to 
me, that I can't at present reconcile myself to you in age. I 
read your poets, but it was in fear and trembling ; and a cold 
sweat is but an ill accompaniment to poetry. I blundered through 
your histories ; but history is so dull (saving your presence) of 
herself, that when the brutal dulness of a schoolmaster is super- 
added to her own slow conversation, the union becomes intole- 
rable ; hence I have not the slightest pleasure in renewing my 



40 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

acquaintance with a lady who has been the source of so much 
bodily and mental discomfort to me." To make a long story 
short, I am anxious to apologize for a want of enthusiasm in the 
classical line, and to excuse an ignorance which is of the most 
undeniable sort. 

This is an improper frame of mind for a person visiting the 
land of ^Eschylus and Euripides ; add to which, we have been 
abominably overcharged at the Inn : and what are the blue hills 
of Attica, the silver calm basin of Piraeus, the heathery heights 
of Pentelicus, and yonder rock crowned by the Doric columns of 
the Parthenon, and the thin Ionic shafts of the Erechtheum, to a 
man who has had little rest, and is bitten all over by bugs ? Was 
Alcibiades bitten by bugs, I wonder ; and did the brutes crawl 
over him as he lay in the rosy arms of Phryne ? I wished all 
night for Socrates' hammock or basket, as it is described in the 
"Clouds;" in which resting-place, no doubt, the abominable 
animals kept per force clear of him. 

A French man-of-war, lying in the silvery little harbor, sternly 
eyeing out of its stern port-holes a saucy little English corvette 
beside, began playing sounding marches as a crowd of boats 
came paddling up to the steamer's side to convey us travellers to 
shore. There were Russian schooners and Greek brigs lying in 
this little bay ; dumpy little v/indmills whirling round on the 
sunburnt heights round about it ; an improvised town of quays 
and marine taverns has sprung up on the shore ; a host of jin- 
gling barouches, more miserable than any to be seen even in 
Germany, were collected at the landing-place ; and the Greek 
drivers (how queer they looked in skull-caps, shabby jackets 
with profuse embroidery of worsted, and endless petticoats of 
dirty calico !) began, in a generous ardor for securing passengers, 
to abuse each other's horses and carriages in the regular London 
fashion. Satire could certainly hardly caricature the vehicle in 
which we were made to journey to Athens ; and it was only by 
thinking that, bad as they were, these coaches were much 
more comfortable contrivances than any Alcidiades or Cymon 
ever had, that we consoled ourselves along the road. It was, 
flat for six miles along the plain to the city ; and you see for 
the greater part of the way the purple mount on which the 



LANDSCAPE. 41 



Acropolis rises, and the gleaming houses of the town spread be- 
neath. Round this wide, yellow, barren plain, — a stunt district 
of olive-trees is almost the only vegetation visible — there rises, 
as it were, a sort of chorus of the most beautiful mountains ; 
the most elegant, gracious, and noble the eye ever looked on. 
These hills did not appear at all lofty or terrible, but superbly 
rich and aristocratic. The clouds were dancing round about 
them ; you could see their rosy, purple shadows sweeping round 
the clear, serene summits of the hills. To call a hill aristocratic 
seems affected or absurd ; but the difference between these hills 
and the others, is the difference between Newgate Prison and the 
Travellers' Club, for instance : both are buildings ; but the one 
stern, dark and coarse ; the other rich, elegant, and festive. At 
least, so I thought. With such a stately palace as munificent 
Nature had built for these people, what could they be themselves 
but lordly, beautiful, brilliant, brave, and wise ? We saw four 
Greeks on donkeys on the road (which is a dust-whirlwind where 
it is not a puddle) ; and other four were playing with a dirty 
pack of cards, at a barrack that English poets have christened 
the half-way house. Does external nature and beauty influence 
the soul to good ? You go about Warwickshire, and fancy that 
from merely being born and wandering in those sweet sunny 
plains and fresh woodlands, Shakspeare must have drunk in a 
portion of that frank, artless sense of beauty, which lies about 
his works like a bloom or dew ; but a Coventry ribbon maker, 
or a slang Leamington squire, are looking on those very same 
landscapes. too, and what do they profit ? You theorize about the 
influence which the climate and appearance of Atlica must have 
had in ennobling those who were born there ; yonder dirty 
swindling ragged blackguards, lolling over greasy cards three 
hours before noon, quarrelling and shrieking, armed to the teeth 
and afraid to fight, are bred out of the same land which begot 
the philosophers and heroes. But the half-way house is past by 
this time, and behold we are in the capital of king Otho. 

I swear solemnly that I would rather have two hundred a year 
in Fleet-street, than be king of the Greeks, with Basileus written 
before my name round their beggarly coin ; with the bother of 
perpetual revolutions in my huge plaster of Paris palace, with 



42 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

no amusement but a drive in the afternoon over a wretched arid 
country, where roads are not made, with ambassadors (the deuce 
knows why, for what good can the English, or the French, or the 
Russian party get out of such a bankrupt alliance as this ?) per- 
petually pulling and tugging at me, away from honest Germany, 
where there is beer and sesthetic conversation, and operas at a 
small cost. The shabbiness of this place actually beats Ireland, 
and that is a strong word. The palace of the Basileus is an 
enormous edifice of plaster, in a square containing six houses, 
three donkeys, no roads, no fountains (except in the picture of the 
inn) ; backwards it seems to look straight to the mountain — on 
one side is a beggarly garden — the king goes out to drive (revo- 
lutions permitting) at five — some four-and-twenty blackguards 
saunter up to the huge sandhill of a terrace, as his majesty 
passes by in a gilt barouche and an absurd - fancy dress ; the 
gilt barouche goes plunging down the sand-hills : the two dozen 
soldiers, who have been presenting arms, slouch off to their 
quarters : the vast barrack of a palace remains entirely white, 
ghastly and lonely : and save the braying of a donkey now and 
then (which long-eared minstrels are more active and sonorous 
in Athens than in any place I know), all is entirely silent round 
Basileus's palace. How could people who knew Leopold fancy 
he would be so "jolly green," as to take such a birth ? It was 
only a gobemouche of a Bavarian that could ever have been in- 
duced to accept it. 

I beseech you to believe that it was not the bill and the bugs 
at the inn which induced the writer hereof to speak so slightingly 
of the residence of Basileus. These evils are now cured and 
forgotten. This is written off the leaden flats and mounds which 
they call the Troad. It is stern justice alone which pronounces 
this excruciating sentence. It was a farce to make this place 
into a kingly capital ; and I make no manner of doubt that King 
Otho, the very day he can get away unperceived, and get together 
the passage-money, will be off for dear old Deutschland, Father- 
land, Beerland ! 

I have never seen a town in England which may be compared 
to this ; for though Heme Bay is a ruin now, money was once 
spent upon it and houses built ; here, beyond a few scores of man- 



• ENGLAND FOR EVER. 43 

sions comfortably laid out, the town is little better than a ricketty 
agglomeration of larger and smaller huts, tricked out here and 
there with the most absurd cracked ornaments, and cheap attempts 
at elegance. But neatness is the elegance of poverty, and these 
people despise such a homely ornament. I have got a map with 
squares, fountains, theatres, public gardens, and Places d'Othon 
marked out ; but they only exist in the paper capital — the wretch- 
ed, tumble-down, wooden one boasts of none. 

One is obliged to come back to the old disagreeable comparison 
of Ireland. Athens may be about as wealthy a place as Carlow or 
Killarney — the streets swarm with idle crowds, the innumerable 
little lanes flow over with dirty little children, they are playing g.nd 
paddling a,bout in the dirt everywhere, with great big eyes, yellow 
faces, and the queerest little gowns and skull caps. But in the outer 
man, the Greek has far the advantage of the Irishman ; most of 
them are well and decently dressed (if five-and-twenty yards of 
petticoat may not be called decent, what may ?) ; they swagger to 
and fro with huge knives in their girdles. Almost all the men 
are handsome, but live hard, it is said, in order to decorate their 
backs with those fine clothes of theirs. I have seen but two or 
three handsome women, and these had the great drawback which 
is common to the race — I mean, a sallow, greasy, coarse com- 
plexion, at which it was not advisable to look too closely. 

And on this score I think we English may pride ourselves on 
possessing an advantage (by we, I m^lh the lovely ladies to whom 
this is addressed with the most respectful compliments) over the 
most classical country in the world. I don't care for beauty 
which will only bear to be looked at from a distance like a scene 
in a theatre.^ What is the most beautiful nose in the world, if it 
be covered with a skin of the texture and color of coarse whity- 
brown paper ; and if Nature has made it as slippery and shining 
as though it had been anointed with pomatum ? They may talk 
about beauty, but you would not wear a flower that had been 
dipped in a grease-pot 1 No ; give me a fresh, dewy, healthy 
rose out of Somersetshire ; not one of those superb, tawdry, un- 
wholesome exotics, which are only good to make poems about. 
Lord Byron wrote more cant of this sort than any poet I know of. 
Think of " the peasant girls with dark blue eyes " of the Rhine 



44 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

— the brown-faced, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, dirty wenches ! Think 
of " filling high a cup of Samian wine ;" small beer is nectar 
compared to it, and Byron himself always drank gin. That man 
never wrote from his heart. He got up rapture and enthusiasm 
with an eye to the public ; — but this is dangerous ground, even 
more dangerous than to look Athens full in the face, and say that 
your eyes are not dazzled by its beauty. The Great Public 
admires Greece and Byron ; the public knows best. Murray's 
" Guide Book " calls the latter " our native bard." Our native 
bard ! Mon dieu / He Shakspeare's, Milton's, Keats's, Scott's 
native bard ! Well, vro be to the man who denies the public 
gods ! 

The truth is, then, that Athens is a disappointment ; and I am 
angry that it should be so. To a skilled antiquarian, or an enthu- 
siastic Greek scholar, the feelings created by a sight of the place 
of course will be different ; but you who would be inspired by it 
must undergo a long preparation of reading, and possess, too, a 
particular feeling ; both of which, I suspect, are uncommon in 
our busy commercial newspaper-reading eountry. Men only say 
they are enthusiastic about the Greek and Roman authors and 
history, because it is considered proper and respectable. And 
we know how gentlemen in Baker Street have editions of the 
classics handsomely bound in the library, and how they use them. 
Of course they don't retire to read the newspaper ; it is to look 
over a favorite ode of Pind^ or to discuss an obscure passage in 
Athenseus ! Of course country magistrates and members of Par- 
liament are always studying Demosthenes and Cicero ; we know 
it from their continual habit of quoting the Latin grammar in 
Parliament. But it is agreed that the classics are respectable ; 
therefore we are to be enthusiastic about them. Also let us ad- 
mit that Byron is to be held up as " our native bard." 

I am not so entire a heathen as to be insensible to the beauty 
of those relics of Greek art, of which men much more learned 
and enthusiastic have written such piles of descriptions. I thought 
I could recognize the towering beauty of the prodigious columns 
of the temple of Jupiter ; and admire the astonishing grace, se- 
verity, elegance, completeness of the Parthenon. The little tem- 
ple of Victory, with its fluted Corinthian shafts, blazed under the 



CLASSIC REMAINS. 45 



sun almost as fresh as it must have appeared to the eyes of its 
founders ; I saw nothing more charming and brilliant, more grace- 
ful, festive, and aristocratic than this sumptuous little building. 
The Roman remains which lie in the town below, look like the 
works of barbarians beside these perfect structures. They jar 
strangely on the eye, after it has been accustoming itself to per- 
fect harmony and proportions. If, as the schoolmaster tells us, 
the Greek writing is as complete as the Greek art ; if an ode of 
Pindar is as glittering and pure as the temple of Victory ; or a 
discourse of Plato as polished and calm as yonder mystical portico 
of the Erechtheum ; what treasures of the senses and delights of 
the imagination have those lost to whom the Greek books are as 
good as sealed ! 

And yet one meets with very dull first-class men. Genius 
won't transplant from one brain to another, or is ruined in the car- 
riage like fine Burgundy. Sir Robert Peel and Sir John Hob- 
house are both good scholars ; but their poetry in Parliament 
does not strike one as fine. Muzzle, the schoolmaster, who is 
bullying poor trembling little boys, was a fine scholar when he 
was a sizar, and a ruffian then and ever since. Where is the 
great poet, since the days of Milton, who has improved the natural 
offshoots of his brain by grafting it from the Athenian tree ? 

I had a volume of Tennyson in my pocket, which somehow 
settled that question, and ended the querulous dispute between me 
and Conscience, under the shape of the neglected and irritated 
Greek muse, which had been going on ever since I had com- 
menced my walk about Athens. The old spinster saw me wince 
at the idea of the author of Dora and Ulysses, and tried to follow 
up her advantage by further hints of time lost, and precious op- 
portunities thrown away — " You might have written poems like 
them," said she ; "or, no, not like them perhaps, but you might have 
done a neat prize poem, and pleased your papa and mama. 
You might have translated Jack and Gill into Greek iambics, 
and been a credit to your college." I turned testily away from 
her. " Madam," says I, " because an eagle houses on a mountain, 
or soars to the sun, don't you be angry with a sparrow that perch- 
es on a garret-window, or twitters on a twig. Leave me to my- 
self; look, my beak is not aquiline by any means." 



46 ' A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



And so, my dear friend, you who have been reading this last 
page in wonder, and who, instead of a description of Athens, have 
been accommodated with a lament on the part of .the writer, that 
.he was idle at school, and does not know Greek, excuse this mo- 
'mentary outbreak of egotistic despondency. To say truth, dear 
Jones, when one walks among the nests of the eagles, and sees 
the prodigious eggs they laid, a certain feeling of discomfiture 
must come over us smaller birds. You and I could not mvent, 
it even stretches our minds painfully to try and comprehend part 
of the beauty of the Parthenon— ever so little of it— the beauty of a 
single column,— a fragment of a broken shaft lying under the asto- 
nishing blue sky there, in the midst of that unrivalled landscape. 
There may be grander aspects of nature, but none more deli- 
ciously beautiful. The hills rise in perfect harmony, and fall in 
the most exquisite cadences,— the sea seems brighter, the islands 
more purple, the clouds more light and rosy than elsewhere. As 
you look up through the open roof, you are almosf oppressed by 
the serene depth of the blue overhead. Look even at the frag- 
ments of the marble, how soft and pure it is, glittering and whue 
like fresh snow ! " I was all beautiful," it seems to say, " even 
the hidden parts of me were spotless, precious, and fair "—and 
so musincT over this wonderful scene, perhaps I get some feeble 
glimpse or idea of that ancient Greek spirit which peopled 
it with sublime races of heroes and gods ;* and which I never 
could get out of a Gi-eek book,— no, not though Muzzle flung it 
at my head. 

* Saint Paul speaking from the Areopagus, and rebuking these supersti- 
tions away, yet speaks tenderly to the people before him, whose devotions 
he had marked ; quotes their poets, to bring them to think of the God un- 
known, whom they had ignorantly worshipped ; and says, that the time of 
this icrnorance God winked at, but that now it was time to repent. No 
rebuk'e can surely be more gentle than this delivered by the upright Apostle. 



SMYRNA. 47 



VI. 

SMYRNA FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST. 

I AM glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that I 
should not be balked of the pleasure of entering an eastern town 
by an introduction to any garbled or incomplete specimen of one. 
Smyrna seems to me the most eastern of all I have seen ; as 
Calais will probably remain to the Englishman the most French 
town in the world. The jack- boots of the postillions don't seem so 
huge elsewhere, or the tight stockings of the maid-servants so 
Gallic. The churches and the ramparts, and the Httle soldiers 
on them, remain for ever impressed upon your memory ; from 
which larger temples and buildings, and whole armies have sub- 
sequently disappeared : and the first words of actual French 
heard spoken, and the first dinner at Quillacq's, remain after 
twenty years as clear as on the first day. Dear Jones, can't you 
remember the exact smack of the white hermitage, and the tooth- 
less old fellow singing " Largo al factotum ?" 

The first day in the East is like that. After that there is 
nothing. The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful 
shock, which so seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the 
world, though they seek for it everywhere. One such looked out 
at Smyrna from our 'steamer, and yawned without the least ex- 
citement, and did not betray the slightest emotion, as boats with 
real Turks on board came up to the ship. There lay the town 
with minarets and cypresses, domes and castles ; great guns were 
firing off, and the blood-red flag of the Sultan flaring over the 
fort ever since sun-rise ; woods and mountains came down to the 
gulfs edge, and as you looked at them with the telescope, there 
peeped out of the general mass a score of pleasant episodes of 
Eastern life — there were cottages with quaint roofs ; silent cool 
kiosks, where the chief of the eunuchs brings down the ladies of 



48 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets ; and 
Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood. 
Smith looked at these wonders quite unmoved ; and I was sur- 
prised at his apathy : but he had been at Smyrna before. A man 
only sees the miracle once ; though you yearn after it ever so, it 
won't come again. I saw nothing of Ali Baba and Hassan the 
next time we came to Smyrna, and had some doubts (recollecting 
the badness of the inn) about landing at all. A person who 
wishes to understand France and the East should come in a yacht 
to Calais or Smyrna, land for two hours, and never afterwards 
go back again. 

But those two hours are beyond measure delightful. Some 
of us were querulous up to that time, and doubted of the wisdom 
of making the voyage. Lisbon, we owned, was a failure ; Ath- 
ens a dead failure. Malta very well, but not worth the trouble 
and sea sickness ; in fact, Baden Baden or Devonshire would be 
a better move than this ; when Smyrna came, and rebuked all 
mutinous cockneys into silence. Some men may read this who 
are in want of a sensation. If they love the odd and picturesque, 
if they loved the Arabian Nights in their youth, let them book 
themselves on board one of the Peninsular and Oriental vessels, 
and try one dip into Constantinople or Smyrna. Walk into the 
Bazaar, and the East is unveiled to you ; how often and often 
have you tried to fancy this, lying out on a summer holiday at 
school ! It is wonderful, too, how like it is ; you may imagine 
that you have been in the place before, you seem to know it so 
well! 

The beauty of that poetry is, to me, that it was never too hand- 
some ; there is no fatigue of sublimity about it. Shacabac and 
the Little Barber play as great a part in it as the heroes ; there 
are no uncomfortable sensations of terror ; you may be familiar 
with the great Afreet, who was going to execute the travellers 
for killing his son with a date-stone. Morgiana, when she kills 
the forty robbers with boiling oil, does not seem to hurt them in 
the least ; and though King Schahriar makes a practice of cut- 
ting off his wives' heads, yet you fancy they have got them on 
again in some of the back rooms of the palace, where they are 
dancing and playing on dulcimers. How fresh, easy, good-na- 



THE BAZAAR. 49 



tured, is all this ! How delightful is that notion of the pleasant 
Eastern people about knowledge, where the height of science is 
made to consist in the answering of riddles ! and all the mathe- 
maticians and magicians bring their great beards to bear on a 
conundrum ! 

When I got into the bazaar among this race, somehow I felt as 
if they were all friends. There sat the merchants in their little 
shops, quiet and solemn, but with friendly looks. There was no 
smoking, it was the Ramazan ; no eating, the fish and meats 
fizzing in the enormous pots of the cook-shops are only for the 
Christians. The children abounded ; the law is not so stringent 
upon them, and many wandering merchants were there selling 
figs (in the name of the prophet doubtless), for their benefit, and 
elbowing onwards with baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Coun- 
trymen passed bristling over with arms, each with a huge belly- 
ful of pistols and daggers in his girdle ; fierce, but not the least 
dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, who had come in with the 
caravans, walked solemnly about, very different in look and de- 
meanor from the sleek inhabitants of the town. Greeks and 
Jews squatted and smoked, their shops tended by sallow-faced 
boys, with large eyes, who smiled and welcomed you in ; negroes 
bustled about in gaudy colors ; and women, with black nose-bags 
and shuffling yellow slippers, chatted and bargained at the doors 
of the little shops. There was the rope quarter and the sweet- 
meat quarter, and the pipe bazaar and the arm bazaar, and the 
little turned up shoe quarter and the shops where ready-made 
jackets and pelisses were swinging, and the region where, under 
the ragged awnings, regiments of tailors were at work. The sun 
peeps through these awnings of mat or canvas, which are hung 
over the narrow lanes of the bazaar, and ornaments them with a 
thousand freaks of light and shadow. Cogia Hassan Alhabbal's 
shop is in a blaze of light ; while his neighbor, the barber and 
coffee-house keeper, has his premises, his low seats and narghiles, 
his queer pots and basins, in the shade. The cobblers are 
always good-natured ; there was one who, I am sure, has been 
revealed to me in my dreams, in a dirty old green turban, with 
a pleasant wrinkled face like an apple, twinkling his little grey 
eyes as he held them up to talk to the gossips, and smiling under 
4 



50 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

a delightful old grey beard, which did the heart good to see. 
You divine the conversation between him and the cucumber-man, 
as the Sultan used to understand the language of the birds. Are 
any of those cucumbers stuffed with pearls, and is that Arme- 
nian with the black square turban Harun Alraschid in disguise, 
standing yonder by the fountain where the children are drinking 
— the gleaming marble fountain, chequered all over with light 
and shadow, and engraved with delicate Arabesques and senten- 
ces from the Koran ? 

But the greatest sensation of all is when the camels come. 
Whole strings of real cam.els, better even than in the procession 
of Blue Beard, with soft rolling eyes and bended necks, swaying 
from one side of the bazaar to the other to and fro, and treading 
gingerly with their great feet. O, you fairy dreams of boyhood ! 
O, you sweet meditations of half-holidays, here you are realized 
for half an hour ! The genius which presides over youth led us 
to do a good action that day. There was a man sitting in an open 
room, ornamented with fine long-tailed sentences of the Koran ; 
some in red, some in blue ; some written diagonally over the 
paper ; some so shaped as to represent ships, dragons, or myste- 
rious animals. The man squatted on a carpet in the middle of 
this room, with folded arms, waggling his head to and fro, sway- 
ing about, and singing through his nose choice phrases from the 
sacred work. But from the room above came a clear noise of 
many liitle shouting voices, much more musical than that of Naso 
in the matted parlor, and the guide told us it was a school, so we 
went up stairs to look. 

I declare, on my conscience, the master was in the act of basti- 
nadoing a little mulatto boy ; his feet were in a bar, and the brute 
was laying on with a cane ; so we witnessed the howling of the 
poor boy, and the confusion of the brute who was administering 
the correction. The other children were made to shout, 1 believe, 
to drown the noises of their little comrade's howling; but the 
punishment was instantly discontinued as our hats came up over 
the stair-trap, and the boy cast loose, and the bamboo huddled 
into a corner, and the schoolmaster stood before us abashed. All 
the small scholars in red caps, and the little girls in gaudy hand- 
kerchiefs, turned their big wondering dark eyes towards us ; and 



THE FIG SEASON. 51 



the caning was over for that time, let us trust. I don't envy some 
schoolmasters in a future state. I pity that poor little blubbering 
Mahometan ; he will never be able to relish the Arabian Nights 
in the original, all his life long. 

From this scene we rushed off some v/hat discomposed, to make 
a breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and 
Smyrna wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn, to which we were 
recommended ; and from the windows of which we had a fine 
cheerful view of the gulf and its busy craft, and the loungers and 
the merchants along the shore. There were camels unloading at 
one wharf, and piles of melons much bigger than the Gibraltar 
cannon-balls at another. It was the fig season, and we passed 
several alleys encumbered with long rows of fig dressers, children 
and women for the most part, who were packing the fruit dili- 
gently into drums, dipping them in salt-water first, and spreading 
them neatly over with leaves ; while the figs and leaves are dry- 
ing, large white worms crawl out of them, and swarm over the 
decks of the ships which carry them to Europe and to England, 
where small children eat them with pleasure — 1 mean the figs, 
not the worms — and where they are still served at wine parties at 
the Universities. When fresh, they are not better than else- 
where ; but the melons are of admirable flavor, and so large, that 
Cinderella might almost be accommodated with a coach made of 
a big one, without any very great distension of its original pro- 
portions. 

Our guide, an accomplished swindler, demanded two dollars as 
the fee for entering a mosque, which others of our party subse- 
quently saw for sixpence, so we did not care to examine that place 
of worship. But there were other cheaper sights, which were to 
the full as picturesque, for which there was no call to pay money, 
or indeed, for a day scarcely to move at all. I doubt whether a 
man who would smoke his pipe on a bazaar counter all day, and 
let the city flow by him. would not be almost as well employed as 
the most active curiosity hunter. 

To be sure he would not see the women. Those in the bazaar 
were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody 
would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their 
figures than if they had been stuffed in bolsters ; and even their 



52 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

feet were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double 
yellow slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is 
in the Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor 
Christians who were pulling figs, that you see the beauties ; and 
a man of a generous disposition may lose his heart half a dozen 
times a day in Smyrna. There was the pretty maid at work at a 
tambour-frame in an open porch, with an old duenna spinning by 
her side, and a goat tied up to the railings of the little court-gar- 
den ; there was the nymph who came down the stair with the 
pitcher on her head, and gazed with great calm eyes, as large 
and stately as Juno's ; there was the gentle mother, bending over 
a queer cradle, in which lay a small crying bundle of infancy. 
All these three charmers were seen in a single street in the Arme- 
nian quarter, where the house doors are all open, and the women 
of the families sit under the arches in the court. There was the 
fig-girl, beautiful beyond all others, with an immense coil of deep 
black hair twisted round a head of which Raphael was worthy to 
draw the outline, and Titian to paint the color. I wonder the 
Sultan has not swept her off, or that the Persian merchants, who 
come with silks and sweetmeats, have not kidnapped her for the 
Shah of Tehran. 

We went to see the Persian merchants at their Khan, and pur- 
chased some silks there from a swarthy black-bearded man, with 
a conical cap of lamb's- wool. Is it not hard to think that silks 
bought of a man in a lamb's-wool cap, in a caravanserai, brought 
thither on the backs of camels, should have been manufactured 
after all at Lyons? Others of our party bought carpets, for 
which the town is famous ; and there was one who absolutely laid 
in a stock of real Smyrna figs, and purchased three or four real 
Smyrna sponges for his carriage ; so strong was his passion for 
the genuine article. 

I wonder that no painter has given us familiar views of the 
East : not processions, grand sultans, or magnificent landscapes ; 
but faithful transcripts of every day Oriental life, such as each 
street will supply to him. The camels afford endless motives, 
couched in the market-places, lying by thousands in the camel 
square, snorting and bubbling after their manner, the sun blazing 
down on their backs, their slaves and keepers lying behind them 



THE CARAVAN BRIDGE. 53 

in the shade : and the caravan-bridge, above all, would afford a 
painter subjects for a dozen of pictures. Over this Ronman arch, 
which crosses the Meles river, all the caravans pass on their 
entrance to the town. On one side, as we sat and looked at it, 
was a great row of plane-trees ; on the opposite bank a deep wood 
of tall cypresses : in the midst of which rose up innumerable grey- 
tombs, surmounted with the turbans of the defunct believers. 
Beside the stream, the view was less gloomy. There was under 
the plane trees a little coffee-house, shaded by a trellis work, 
covered over with a vine, and ornamented with many rows of 
shining pots and water-pipes, for which there was no use at noon- 
day now, in the time of Ramazan. Hard by the coffee-house was 
a garden and a bubbling marble fountain, and over the stream 
was a broken summer-house, to which amateurs may ascend, for 
the purpose of examining the river ; and all round the plane trees 
plenty of stools for those who were inclined to sit and drink sweet 
thick coffee, or cool lemonade made of fresh green citrons. The 
master of the house, dressed in a white turban, and light blue 
pelisse, lolled under the coffee-house awning ; the slave, in white, 
with a crimson striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, 
brought us pipes and lemonade again, and returned to his station 
at the coffee-house, where he curled his black legs together, and 
began singing out of his flat nose, to the- thrumming of a long 
guitar with wire strings. The instrument was not bigger than a 
soup-ladle, with a long straight handle, but its music pleased the 
performer ; for his eyes rolled shining about, and his head wag- 
ged, and he grinned with an innocent intensity of enjoyment that 
did one good to look at. And there was a friend to share his 
pleasure : a Turk, dressed in scarlet, and covered all over with 
daggers and pistols, sat leaning forward on his little stool, rock- 
ing about, and grinning quite as eagerly as the black minstrel. 
As he sang and we listened, figures of women bearing pitchers 
went passing over the Roman bridge, which we saw between the 
large trunks of the planes ; or grey forms of camels were seen 
stalking across it, the string preceded by the little donkey, who 
is always here their long-eared conductor. 

These are very humble incidents of travel. Wherever the 
steamboat touches the shore adventure retreats into the interior. 



54 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

and what is called romance vanishes. It wont bear the vulgar 
gaze ; or rather the light of common day puts it out, and it is 
only in the dark that it shines at all. There is no cursing and 
insulting of Giaours now. If a cockney looks or behaves in a 
particularly ridiculous way, the little Turks come out and laugh 
at him. A Londoner is no longer a spittoon for true believers : 
and now that dark Hassan sits in his divan and drinks champagne, 
and Selim has a French watch, and Zuleikha perhaps lakes 
Morrison's pills, Byronism becomes absurd instead of sublime, 
and is only a foolish expression of cockney wonder. They still 
occasionally beat a man for going into a mosque, but this is almost 
the only sign of ferocious vitality left in the Turk of the Mediter- 
ranean coast, and strangers may enter scores of mosques without 
molestation. The paddle-wheel is the great conqueror. Wherever 
the captain cries " Stop her," Civilisation stops, and lands in the 
ship's boat, and makes a permanent acquaintance with the savages 
on shore. Whole hosts of crusaders have passed and died, and 
butchered here in vain. But to manufacture European iron into 
pikes and helmets was a waste of metal : in the shape of piston- 
rods and furnace-pokers it is irresistible ; and I think an allegory 
might be made showing how much stronger commerce is than 
chivalry, and finishing with a grand image of Mahomet's crescent 
being extinguished in -Fulton's boiler. 

This I thought was the moral of the day's sights and adven- 
tures. We pulled off to the steamer in the afternoon — the Inbat 
blowing fresh, setting all the craft in the gulf dancing over its 
blue water. We were presently under weigh again, the captain 
ordering his engines to work only at half power, so that a French 
steamer which was quitting Smyrna at the same time might come 
up with us, and fancy she could beat the irresistible Tagus. 
Vain hope ! Just as the Frenchman neared us, the Tagus shot 
out like an arrow, and the discomfited Frenchman v/ent behind. 
Though we all relished the joke exceedingly, there was a French 
gentleman on board who did not seem to be by any means tickled 
with it ; but he had received papers at Smyrna, containing news 
of Marshal Bugeaud's victory at Isly, and had this land victory 
to set against our harmless little triumph at sea. 

That night we rounded the island of Mitylene : and the next 



THE WHISTLER. 55 



day the coast of Troy was in sight, and the tomb of Achilh 
dismal looking mound that rises on a low dreary barren shore- 
less lively and not more picturesque than the Scheldt or the mouth 
of the Thames. Then we passed Tenedos and the forts and 
town at the mouth of the Dardanelles : the weather was not too 
hot ; the water was smooth as at Putney ; and everybody happy 
and excited at the thought of seeing Constantinople to-morrow. 
We had music on board all the way from Smyrna. A German 
commis-voyageur, with a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until 
that time, produced his instrument about mid-day, and began to 
whistle waltzes. He whistled so divinely that the ladies left their 
cabins, and the men laid down their books. He whistled a polka 
so bewitchingly that two young Oxford men began whirling round 
the deck, and performed that popular dance with much agility 
until they sank down tired. He still continued an unabated 
whistling, and as nobody would dance, pulled off his coat, produced 
a pair of castanets, and whistling a mazurka, performed it with 
tremendous agility. His whistling made everybody gay and 
happy — made those acquainted who had not spoken before, and 
inspired such a feeling of hilarity in the ship, that that night, as 
we floated over the sea of Marmora, a general vote was expressed 
for broiled bones and a regular supper party. Punch was brewed, 
and speeches were made, and, after a lapse of fifteen years, I 
heard the " Old English gentleman " and " Bright chanticleer 
proclaims the morn," sung in such style, that you would almost 
fancy the proctors must hear, and send us all home. 



56 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



VII. 

C O N S T A N T I ^^ P L E . 

When we arose at sunrise to see the famous entry to Constan- 
tinople, we found, in place of the cit}^ and the sun, a bright white 
fog, which hid both from sight, and which only disappeared as 
the vessel advanced towards the Golden Horn. There the foof 

o 

cleared off as it were by flakes ; and as you see gauze curtains 
lifted away, one by one, before a great fairy scene at the theatre, 
this will gi-ve idea enough of the fog : the difficulty is to describe 
the scene afterwards, which was in truth the great fairy scene, 
than which it is impossible to conceive anything more brilliant 
and magnificent. I cant go to any more romantic place than 
Drury Lane to draw my similes from — Drury Lane, such as we 
used to see it in our youth, when, to our sight, the grand last pic- 
tures of the melodrama or pantomime were as magnificent as any 
qjjjects of nature we have seen with maturer eyes. Well, the 
view of Constantinople is as fine as any of Stanfield's best 
theatrical pictures, seen at the best period of youth, when fancy 
had all the bloom on her — when all the heroines who danced be- 
fore the scene appeared as ravishing beauties, when there shone 
an unearthly splendor about Baker and Diddear — and the sound 
of the bugles and fiddles, and the cheerful clang of the cymbals, 
as the scene unrolled, and the gorgeous procession meandered tri- 
umphantly through it — caused a thrill of pleasure, and awakened 
an innocent fulness of sensual enjoyment that is only given to 
boys. 

The above sentence contains the following propositions : — The 
enjoyments of boyish fancy are the most intense and delicious in 
the world. Stanfield's panorama used to be the realization of the 
most intense youthful fancy. I puzzle my brains and find no 
better likeness for the place. The view of Constantinople resem- 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 57 



bles the ne plus ultra of a Stanfield diorama, with a glorious ac- 
companiment of music, spangled houris, warriors, and winding 
processions, feasting the eyes and the soul with light, splendor, 
and harmony. If you were never in this way during your youth 
ravished at the play-house, of course the whole comparison is 
useless ; and you have no idea, from this descriptioji, of the effect 
which Constantinople produces on the mind. But if you were 
never affected by a theatre, no words can work upon your fancy, 
and typographical attempts to move it are of no use. For, sup- 
pose we combine mosque, minaret, gold, cypress, water, blue, 
caiques, seventy-four, Galata, Tophana, Ramazan, Backallum, 
and so forth, together, in ever so many ways, your imagination 
will never be able to depict a city out of them. Or, suppose I 
say the Mosque of Saint Sophia is four hundred and seventy-three 
feet in height, measuring from the middle nail of the gilt crescent, 
surmounting the dome, to the ring in the centre stone ; the circle 
in the dome is one hundred and twenty-three feet in diameter, the 
windows ninety-seven in number — and all this may be true, for 
an3'thing I know to the contrary ; yet who is to get an idea of 
Saint Sophia's from dates, proper names, and calculations with a 
measuring line ? It can't be done by giving the age and mea- 
surement of all the buildings along the river, the names of all the 
boatmen who ply on it. Has your fancy, which pooh poohs a 
simile, faith enough to build a city with a foot-rule ? Enough said 
about descriptions and similes (though whenever I am uncertain 
of one, I am naturally most anxious to fight for it) : it is a scene 
not perhaps sublime, but charming, magnificent, and cheerful 
beyond any I have ever seen — the most superb combination of 
city and gardens, domes and shipping, hills and water, with the 
healthiest breeze blowing over it, and above it the brightest and 
most cheerful sky. 

It is proper they say to be disappointed on entering the town, 
or any of the various quarters of it ; because the houses are not 
so magnificent on inspection and seen singly, as they are when 
beheld en masse from the waters. But why form expectations so 
lofty ? If you see a group of peasants picturesquely disposed at 
a fair, you don't suppose that they are all faultless beauties, or 
that the men's coats have no rags, and the women's gowns are 
4* 



58 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

made of silk and velvet: the wild ugliness of the interior of Con- 
stantinople or Pera has a charm of its own, greatly more amusing 
than rows of red bricks or drab stones, however symmetrical. 
With brick or stone they could never form those fantastic orna- 
ments, railings, balconies, roofs, galleries, which jut in and out 
of the rugged houses of the city. As we went from Galata to 
Pera up a steep hill, which new comers ascend v/ith some diffi- 
culty, but which a porter, with a couple of hundred weight on his 
back, paces up without turning a hair, I thought the wooden 
houses, far from being disagreeable objects, sights quite as sur- 
prising and striking as the grand one we had just left. 

I do not know how the Custom House of his Highness is made 
to be a profitable speculation. As I left the ship, a man pulled 
after my boat, and asked for backsheesh, which was given him to 
the amount of about two pence. He was a Custom-house officer, 
but I doubt whether this sum which he levied ever went to the 
revenue. 

I can fancy the scene about the quays somewhat to resemble the 
river of London in olden times, before coal smoke had darkened 
the whole city with soot, and when, according to the old writers, 
there really was bright weather. The fleets of caiques bustling 
along the shore, or scudding over the blue water, are beautiful to 
look at ; in Hollar's print London river is so studded over with 
wherry boats, which bridges and steamers have since destroyed. 
Here the caique is still in full perfection : there are thirty thou- 
sand boats of the kind plying between the cities ; every boat is 
neat, and trimly carved and painted ; and I scarcely saw a man 
pulling in one of them that was not a fine specimen of his race, 
brawny and brown, with an open chest and a handsome face. 
They wear a thin shirt of exceedingly light cotton, which leaves 
their fine brown limbs full play ; and with a purple sea for a 
back ground, every one of these dashing boats forms a brilliant 
and glittering picture. Passengers squat in the inside of the 
boat ; so that as it passes, you see little more than the heads of 
the true believers, with their red fez and blue tassel, and that 
placid gravity of expression which the sucking of a tobacco pipe 
is sure to give to a man. 

The Bosphorus is enlivened by a multiplicity of other kinds of 



EOTHEN'S MISSERL 59 



craft. There are the dirty men-of-war's boats of the Russians 
with unwashed mangy crews ; the great ferry-boats carrying 
hundreds of passengers to the villages ; the melon boats piled up 
with enormous golden fruit ; his Excellency the Pasha's boat, 
with twelve men bending to their oars ; and his Highness's own 
caique, with a head like a serpent, and eight-and-twenty tugging 
oarsmen, that goes shooting by amidst the thundering of the can- 
non. Ships and steamers, with black sides and flaunting colors, 
are moored everywhere, showing their flags, Russian and Eng- 
lish, Austrian, American, and Greek ; and along the quays coun- 
try ships from the Black Sea or the islands, with high carved 
poops and bows such as you see in the pictures of the shipping 
of the 17th century. The vast groves and towers, domes and 
quays, tall minarets and spired spreading mosques of the three 
cities, rise all around in endless magnificence and variety, and 
render this water-street a scene of such delightful loveliness and 
beauty, that one never tires of looking at it. I lost a great num- 
ber of the sights in and round Constantinople, through the beauty 
of this admirable scene : but what are sights after all ? and isn't 
that the best sight which makes you most happy ? 

We were lodged at Pera at Misseri's hotel, the host of which 
has been made famous ere this time, by the excellent book Eo- 
then, a work for which all the passengers on board our ship had 
been battling, and which had charmed all — from our great states- 
man, our polished lawyer, our young Oxonian, Vv'ho sighed over 
certain passages that he feared were wicked, down to the writer 
of this, who, after perusing it with delight, laid it down with won- 
der, exclaiming, " Aut Diabolus aut " — a book which has since 
(greatest miracle of all) excited a feeling of warmth and admira- 
tion in the bosom of the godlike, impartial, stony Athenseum. 
Misseri, the faithful and chivalrous Tartar, is transformed into 
the most quiet and gentlemanlike of landlords, a great deal more 
gentlemanlike in manner and appearance than most of us, who 
sat at his table, and smoked cool pipes on his house top, as we 
looked over the hill and the Russian palace to the water, and the 
Seraglio gardens shining in the blue. We confronted Misseri, 
Eothen in hand, and found, on examining him, that it wasy aut 



60 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Diabolus aut amicus " — but the name is a secret ; T will never 
breathe it, though I am dying to tell it. 

The last good description of a Turkish bath, I think, was Lady 
Mary Wortley Montague's, which voluptuous picture must have 
been painted at least a hundred and thirty years ago ; so that 
another sketch may be attempted by an humbler artist in a differ- 
ent manner. The Turkish bath is certainly a novel sensation to 
an Englishman, and may be set down as the most queer and sur- 
prising event of his life. ] made the valet de place or dragoman 
(it is rather a fine thing to have a dragoman in one's service) con- 
duct me forthwith to the best appointed hummums in the neigh- 
borhood ; and we walked to a house at Tophana, and into a spa- 
cious hall lighted from above, which is the cooling room of the 
bath. 

The spacious hall has a large fountain in the midst, a painted 
gallery running round it ; and many ropes stretched from one 
gallery to another, ornamented with profuse draperies of towels 
and blue cloths, for the use of the frequenters of the place. All 
round the room and the galleries were matted enclosures, fitted 
with numerous neat beds and cushions for reposing on, where lay 
a dozen of true believers smoking, or sleeping, or in the happy 
half-dozing state. I was led up to one of these beds to rather a 
retired corner, in consideration of my modesty ; and to the next 
bed presently came a dancing dervish, who forthwith began to 
prepare for the bath. 

When the dancing dervish had taken off his yellow sugar-loaf 
cap, his gown, shawl, &c., he was arrayed in two large blue 
cloths; a white one being thrown over his shoulders, and an- 
other in the shape of a turban plaited neatly round his head ; 
the garmej;its of which he divested himself were folded up in 
another linen, and neatly put by. I beg leave to state I was 
treated in precisely the same manner as the dancing dervish. 

The reverend gentleman then put on a pair of wooden pattens, 
which elevated him about six inches from the ground ; and walked 
down the stairs, and paddled across the moist marble floor of the 
hall, and in at a little door, by the which also Titmarsh entered. 
But I had none of the professional agility of the dancing dervish ; 
I staggered about very ludicrously upon the high wooden pattens ; 



A TURKISH BATH. 61 

and should have been down on my nose several times, had not the 
dragoman and the master of the bath supported me down the stairs 
and across the hall. Dressed in three large cotton napkins, with 
a white turban round my head, I thought of Pall Mall with a sort 
of despair. I passed the little door, it was closed behind me — I 
was in the dark — I couldn't speak the language — in a white tur- 
ban — Mon Dieu ! what was going to happen ? 

The dark room was the tepidarimm, a moist oozing arched den, 
with a light faintly streaming from an orifice in the domed ceiling. 
Yells of frantic laughter and song came booming and clanging 
through the echoing arches, the doors clapped to with loud rever- 
berations. It was the laughter of the followers of Mahound, 
rollicking and taking their pleasure in the public bath. I could 
not go into that place ; I swore I would not ; they promised me a 
private room, and the dragoman left me. My agony at parting 
from that Christian cannot be described. 

When you get into the Sudarium, or hot room, your first sensa- 
tions only occur about half a minute after entrance, when you feel 
that you are choking. I found myself in that state, seated on a 
marble slab ; the bath man was gone ; he had taken away the 
cotton turban and shoulder shawl : I saw I was in a narrow 
room of marble, with a vaulted roof, and a fountain of warm and 
cold water ; the atmosphere was in a steam, the choking sensa- 
tion went ofT, and I felt a sort of pleasure presently in a soft boil- 
ing simmer, which, no doubt, potatoes feel when they are steam- 
ing. You are left in this state for about ten minutes ; it is warm 
certainly, but odd and pleasant, and disposes the mind to reverie. 

But let any delicate mind in Baker street fancy my horror, 
when, on looking up out of this reverie, I saw a great brown 
wretch extended before me, only half dressed, standing on pat- 
tens, and exaggerated by them and the steam until he looked 
like an ogre, grinning in the most horrible way, and waving his 
arm, on which was a horse-hair glove. He spoke in his unknown 
nasal jargon, words which echoed through the arched room ; his 
eyes seemed astonishingly large and bright, his ears stuck out, 
and his head was all shaved, except a bristling top-knot, which 
gave it a demoniac fierceness. 

This description, I feel, is growing too frightful ; ladies who 



62 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

read it will be going into hysterics, or saying, " ^ell, upon my 
word, this is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of 
language. Jane, my love, you will not read that odious book " — 
and so I will be brief. This grinning man belabors the patient 
most violently with the horse brush. When he has completed the 
horse-hair part, and you lie expiring under a squirting fountain 
of warm water, and fancying all is done, he reappears with a 
large brass basin, containing a*quantity of lather, in the midst of 
which is something like old Miss Mac Whirter's flaxen wig that 
she is so proud of, and that we have all laughed at. Just as 
you are going to remonstrate, the thing like the wig is dashed 
into your face and eyes, covered over with soap, and for five 
minutes you are drowned in lather ; you can't see, the suds are 
frothing over your eyeballs ; you can't hear, the soap is whiz- 
zing into your ears ; you can't gasp for breath. Miss Mac Whir- 
ter's wig is down your throat with half a pailful of suds in an 
instant — you are all soap. Wicked children in former days 
have jeered you, exclaiming, " How are you off for soap ?" 
You little knew what saponacity was till you entered a Turkish 
bath. 

When the whole operation is concluded, you are led — with 
what heartfelt joy I need not say — softly back to the cooling- 
room, having been robed in shawls and turbans as before. You 
are laid gently on the reposing bed ; somebody brings a nar- 
ghile, which tastes as tobacco must taste in Mahomet's Paradise ; 
a cool sweet dreamy languor takes possession of the purified 
frame ; and half an hour of such delicious laziness is spent 
over the pipe as is unknown in Europe, where vulgar prejudice 
has most shamefully maligned indolence, calls it foul names, such 
as the father of all evil, and the like ; in fact, does not know how 
to educate idleness as these honest Turks do, and the fruit which, 
when properly cultivated, it bears. 

The after-bath state is the most delightful condition of laziness 
I ever knew, and I tried it wherever we went afterwards on our 
little tour. At Smyrna the whole business was much inferior to 
the method employed in the capital. At Cairo, after the soap, 
you are plunged into a sort of stone coffin, full of water, which 
is all but boiling. This has its charms ; but I could not relish 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 63 



the Egyptian shampooing. A hideous old blind man (but very 
dexterous in his art) tried to break my back and dislocate my 
shoulders, but I could not see the pleasure of the practice ; and 
another fellow began tickling the soles of my feet, but I rewarded 
him with a kick that sent him off the bench. The pure idleness 
is the best, but I shall never enjoy such in Europe again. 

Victor Hugo, in his famous travels on the Rhine, visiting 
Cologne, gives a learned account of what he didn't see there. I 
have a remarkable catalogue of similar objects at Constantinople. 
I didn't see the dancing dervishes, it was Ramazan ; nor the 
howling dervishes at Scutari, it was Ramazan ; nor the interior 
of Saint Sophia, nor the women's apartment of the seraglio, nor 
the fashionable promenade at the Sweet Waters, always because 
it was Ramazan ; during which period the dervishes dance and 
howl but rarely, their legs and lungs being unequal to much ex- 
ertion during a fast of fourteen hours. On account of the same 
holy season, the royal palaces and mosques are shut ; and though 
the valley of the Sweet Waters is there, no one goes to walk ; 
the "people remaining asleep all day, and passing the night in 
feasting and carousing. The minarets are illuminated at this 
season ; even the humblest mosque at Jerusalem, or Jaffa, 
mounted a few circles of dingy lamps ; those of the capital were 
handsomely lighted with many festoons of lamps, which had a fine 
effect from the water. I need not mention other and constant 
illuminations of the city, which innumerable travellers have de- 
scribed — I mean the fires. There were three in Pera during our 
eight days' stay there ; but they did not last long enough to bring 
the sultan out of bed to come and lend his aid. Mr. Hobhouse 
(quoted in the Guide Book) says, if a fire lasts an hour, the sul- 
tan is bound to attend it in person ; and that people having peti- 
tions to present, have often set houses on fire for the purpose of 
forcing out this royal trump. The sultan can't lead a very " jolly 
life," if this rule be universal. Fancy his highness, in the midst 
of his moon-faced beauties, handkerchief in hand, and obliged to 
tie it round his face, and go out of his warm harem at midnight 
at the cursed cry of " Yang en Var ! " 

We saw his highness in the midst of his people and their peti- 
tions, when he came to the mosque at Tophana ; not the largest, 



64 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

but one of the most picturesque of the public buildings of the city. 
The streets were crowded with people watching for- the august 
arrival, and lined with the squat military in their bastard 
European costume ; the sturdy police, with bandeliers and brown 
surtouts, keeping order, driving off the faithful from the railings 
of the Esplanade through which their emperor was to pass, and 
only admitting (with a very unjust partiality 1 thought) us 
Europeans into that reserved space. Before the august arrival, 
numerous officers collected, colonels and pashas went by wiih 
their attendant running footmen ; the most active, insolent, and 
hideous of these great men, as I thought, being his highness's 
black eunuchs, wiio went prancing through the crowd, which 
separated before them with every sign of respect. 

The common w^omen were assembled by many hundreds; the 
yakmac, a muslin chin cloth which they wear, makes almost 
every face look the same ; but the eyes and noses of these 
beauties are generally visible, and, for the most part, both these 
features are good. The jolly negresses wear the same white veil, 
but they are by no means so particular about hiding the charms 
of their good-natured black faces, and they let the cloth blow 
about as it lists, and grin unconfined. Wherever we went the 
negroes seemed happy. They have the organ of child-loving ; 
little creatures were always prattling on their shoulders, queer 
little things in nightgowns of yellow dimity, with great flowers, 
and pink, or red, or yellow shawls, with great eyes glistening un- 
derneath. Of such the black women seemed always the happy 
guardians. I saw one at a fountain, holding one child in her 
arms, and giving another a drink — a ragged little beggar — a sweet 
and touching picture of a black charity. 

I am almost forgetting his highness the sultan. About a hun- 
dred guns were fired off at clumsy intervals from the esplanade 
facing the Bosphorus, warning us that the monarch had set off 
from his summer palace, and was on the way to his grand canoe. 
At last that vessel made its appearance ; the band struck up his 
favorite air ; his caparisoned horse was led down to the shore to 
receive him ; the eunuchs, fat pashas, colonels, and officers of 
state gathering round as the commander of the faithful mounted. 
I had the indescribable happiness of seeing him at a very short 



THE SULTAN. 65 



distance. The Padishah, or Father of all the Sovereigns on Earth, 
has not that majestic air which some sovereigns possess, and which 
makes the beholder's eyes wink, and his knees tremble under 
him : he has a black beard, and a handsome well-bred face, of a 
French cast ; he looks like a young French roue worn out by de- 
bauch ; his eyes bright^ with black rings round them ; his cheeks 
pale and hollow. He was lolling on his horse as if he could 
hardly hold himself on the saddle ; or, as if his cloak, fastened 
with a blazing diamond clasp on his breast, and falling over his 
horse's tail, pulled him back. But the handsome sallow face of 
the Refuge of the World looked decidedly interesting and intel- 
lectual. I have seen many a young Don Juan at Paris, behind 
a counter, with such a beard and countenance ; the flame of 
passion still burning in his hollow eyes, while on his damp brow 
was stamped the fatal mark of premature decay. The man we 
saw cannot live many summers. Women and wine are said to 
have brought the Zilullah to this state ; and it is whispered by the 
Dragomans, or Laquais de Place (from whom travellers at Con- 
stantinople generally get their political information), that the 
sultan's mother and his ministers conspire to keep him plunged in 
sensuality, that they may govern the kingdom according to their 
own fancies. Mr. Urquhart, I am sure, thinks that Lord Pal- 
merston has something to do with the business, and drugs the 
sultan's champagne for the benefit of Russia. 

As the Pontiff of Mussulmans passed into the mosque, a shower 
of petitions was flung from the steps where the crowd was col- 
lected, and over the heads of the gendarmes in brown. A general 
cry, as for justice, rose up ; and one old, ragged woman came 
forward, and burst through the throng, howling, and flinging 
about her lean arms, and baring her old, shrunken breast. I 
never saw a finer action of tragic wo, or heard sounds more 
pitiful than those old, passionate groans of hers. What was your 
prayer, poor old wretched soul ? The gendarmes hemmed her 
round, and hustled her away, but rather kindly. The Padishah 
went on quite impassible — the picture of debauch and ennui. 

I like pointing morals, and inventing for myself cheap consola- 
tions, to reconcile me to that state of life into which it has pleased 
heaven to call me ; and as the Light of the World disappeared 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



round the corner, I reasoned pleasantly with myself about his 
highness, and enjoyed that secret selfish satisfaction a man 
has, who sees he is better off than his neighbor. " Michael- An- 
gelo," I said, " you are still (by courtesy) young : if you had five 
hundred thousand a-year, and were a great prince, I would lay a 
wager that men would discover in you a magnificent courtesy of 
demeanor, and a majestic presence that only belongs to the sove- 
reigns of the world. If you had such an income, you think you 
could spend it with splendor ; distributing genial hospitalities, 
kindly alms, soothing misery, bidding humility be of good heart, 
rewarding desert. If you had such means of purchasing pleasure, 
you think, you rogue, ycu could relish it with gusto. But fancy 
being brought to the condition of the poor Light of the Universe, 
yonder ; and reconcile yourself with the idea that you are only a 
farthing rushlight. The cries of the poor widow fall as dead 
upon him., as the smiles of the brightest eyes out of Georgia. He 
can't stir abroad but those abominable cannon begin roaring and 
deafening his ears. He can't see the world but over the shoul- 
ders of a row of fat pashas, and eunuchs, with their infernal ugli- 
ness. His ears can never be regaled with a word of truth, or 
blessed with an honest laugh. The only privilege of manhood 
left to him, he enjoys but for a month in the year, at this time of 
Ramazan, when he is forced to fast for fifteen hours ; and, by 
consequence, has the blessing of feeling hungry." Sunset during 
Lent appears to be his single moment of pleasure ; they say the 
poor fellow is ravenous by that time, and as the gun fires the dish- 
covers are taken ofi", so that for five minutes a day he lives and 
is happy over pillau, like another mortal. 

And yet, when floating by the summer palace, a barbaric edifice 
of wood and marble, with gilded suns blazing over the porticoes, 
and all sorts of strange ornaments and trophies figuring on the 
gates and railings — when we passed a long row of barred and 
fillagreed windows, looking on the water — when we were told that 
those were the apartments of his highness's ladies, and actually 
heard them whispering and laughing behind the bars — a strange 
feeling of curiosity came over some ill-regulated minds — ^just to 
have one peep, one look at all those wondrous beauties, singing to the 
dulcimers, paddling in the fountains, dancing in the marble halls, 



A SUBJECT FOR A GHAZUL. 67 

or lolling on the golden cushions, as the gaudy black slaves brought 
pipes and coffee. This tumultuous movement was calmed, by 
thinking of that dreadful statement of travellers, that in one of 
the most elegant halls there is a trap-door, on peeping below which, 
you may see the Bosphorus running underneath, into which some 
luckless beauty is plunged occasionally, and the trap-door is shut, 
and the dancing and the singing and the smoking and the laugh- 
ing go on as before. They say it is death to pick up any of the 
sacks thereabouts, if a stray one should float by you. There 
were none any day when 1 passed, at least on the surface of the 
water. 

It has been rather a fashion of our travellers to apologize for 
Turkish life, of late, and paint glowing, agreeable pictures, of 
many of its institutions. The celebrated author of " Palm-Leaves" 
(his name is famous under the date-trees of the Nile, and uttered 
with respect beneath the tents of the Bedawee) has touchingly 
described Ibrahim Pasha's paternal fondness, who cut off a black 
slave's head for having dropped and maimed one of his children ; 
and has penned a melodious panegyric of " The Harem," and of 
the fond and beautiful duties of the inmates of that place of love, 
obedience, and seclusion. I saw, at the Mausoleum of the late 
Sultan Mahmoud's family, a good subject for a Ghazul, in the true 
new Oriental manner. 

These royal burial-places are the resort of the pious Moslems. 
Lamps are kept burning there ; and in the antechambers, copies 
of the Koran are provided for the use of believers ; and you never 
pass these cemeteries but you see Turks washing at the cisterns, 
previous to entering for prayer, or squatted on the benches, chant- 
ing passages from the sacred volume. Christians, I believe, are 
not admitted, but may look through the bars, and see the coffins 
of the defunct monarchs and children of the royal race. Each 
lies in his narrow sarcophagus, which is commonly flanked by 
huge candles, and covered with a rich embroidered pall. At the 
head of each coffin rises a slab, with a gilded inscription ; for the 
princesses, the slab is simple, not unlike our own monumental 
stones. The head-stones of the tombs of the defunct princes are 
decorated with a turban, or, since the introduction of the latter 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



article of dress, with the red fur. That of Mahmoud is decorated 
with the imperial aigrette. 

In this dismal but splendid museum, I remarked two little tombs 
with little red fezzes, very small, and for very young heads evi- 
dently, which were lying under the little embroidered palls of state. 
I forget whether they had candles too ; but their little flame of 
life was soon extinguished, and there was no need of many pounds 
of wax to typify it. These were the tombs of Mahmoud's grand- 
sons, nephews of the present Light of the Universe, and children 
of his sister, the wife of Halil Pacha. Little children die in all 
ways ; these of the much-maligned Mahometan royal race per- 
ished by the bowstring. Sultan Mahmoud (may he rest in glory !) 
strangled the one ; but, having some spark of human feeling, was 
so moved by the wretchedness and agony of the poor bereaved 
mother, his daughter, that his royal heart relented towards her, 
and he promised that, should she ever have another child, it 
should be allowed to live. He died ; and Abdul Medjid (may his 
name be blessed !), the debauched young man whom we just saw 
riding to the mosque, succeeded. His sister, whom he is said to 
have loved, became again a mother, and had a son. But she 
relied upon her father's word and her august brother's love, and 
hoped that this little one should be spared. The same accursed 
hand tore this infant out of its mother's bosom, and killed it. The 
poor woman's heart broke outright at this second calamity, and 
she died. But on her death-bed she sent for her brother, rebuked 
him as a perjurer and an assassin, and expired calling down the 
divine justice on his head. She lies now by the side of the two 
little fezzes. 

Now, I say this would be a fine subject for an oriental poem.. 
The details are dramatic and noble, and could be grandly touched 
by a fine artist. If the mother had borne a daughter, the child 
would have been safe ; that perplexity might be pathetically de- 
picted as agitating the bosom of the young wife, about to become 
a mother. A son is born ; you can see her despair and the pitiful 
look she casts on the child, and the way in which she hugs it 
every time the curtains of* her door are removed. The sultan 
hesitated probably ; he allowed the infant to live for six weeks. 
He could not bring his royal soul to inflict pain. He yields at 



TURKISH CHILDREN. 69 

last; he is a martyr — to be pitied, not to be blamed. If he melts 
at his daughter's agony, he is a man and a father. There are 
men and fathers too in the much-maligned orient. 

Then comes the second act of the tragedy. The new hopes, 
the fond yearnings, the terrified misgivings, the timid belief, and 
weak confidence ; the child that is born — and dies smiling pret- 
tily — and the mother's heart is rent so, that it can love, or hope, 
or suffer no more. Allah is God ! She sleeps by the little fezzes. 
Hark ! the guns are booming over the water, and his highness is 
coming from his prayers. 

After the murder of that little child, it seems to me one can 
never look with anything but horror upon the butcherly Herod 
who ordered it. The death of the seventy thousand Janissaries 
ascends to historic dignity, and takes rank as war. But a great 
prince and Light of the Universe, who procures abortions and 
throttles little babies, dwindles away into such a frightful insig- 
nificance of crime, that those may respect him who will. I pity 
their Excellencies the ambassadors, who are obliged to smirk and 
cringe to such a rascal. To do the Turks justice — and two days' 
walk in Constantinople will settle this fact as well as a year's 
residence in the city — the people do not seem in the least ani- 
mated by this Herodian spirit. I never saw more kindness to 
children than among all classes, more fathers walking about with 
little solemn Mahometans in red caps and big trowsers, more bu- 
siness going on than in the toy quarter — and in the Atmeidan, 
although you may there see the Thebaic stone set up by the Em- 
peror Theodosius, and the bronze column of serpents, which 
Murray says was brought from Delphi, but which my guide in- 
formed me was the very one exhibited by Moses in the wilderness : 
yet I found the examination of these antiquities much less pleas- 
ant than to look at the many troops of children assembled on the 
plain to play ; and to watch them as they were dragged about in 
little queer arobas, or painted carriages, which are there kept for 
hire. I have a picture of one of them now in my eyes : a little 
green oval machine, with flowers rudely painted round the win- 
dow, out of which two smiling heads are peeping, the pictures of 
happiness. An old. good-humored, grey-bearded Turk is tugging 
the cart ; and behind it walks a lady in a yakmac and yellow 



70 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

slippers, and a black female slave, grinning as usual, towards 
whom the little coach-riders are looking. A small, sturdy, bare- 
footed Mussulman is examining the cart with some feelings of 
envy : he is too poor to purchase a ride for himself and the round- 
faced puppy-dog, v/hich he is hugging in his arms as young ladies 
in our country do dolls. 

All the neighborhood of the Atmeidan is exceedingly pictures- 
que — the mosque court and cloister, where the Persians have 
their stalls of sweetmeats and tobacco ; a superb sycamore-tree 
grows in the middle of this, overshadowing aromatic fountain : 
great flocks of pigeons are settling in corners of the cloister, and 
barley is sold at the gates, with which the good-natured people 
feed them. From the Atmeidan you have a fine view of Saint 
Sophia : and here stands a mosque which struck me as being 
much more picturesque and sumptuous — the mosque of Sultan 
Achmed, with its six gleaming white minarets, and its beautiful 
courts and trees. Any infidels may enter the court without mo- 
lestation, and, looking through the barred windows of the mosque, 
have a view of its airy and spacious interior. A small audience 
of women was collected there when I looked in, squatted on the 
mats, and listening to a preacher, who was walking among them, 
and speaking with great energy. My dragoman interpreted to 
me the sense of a few words of his sermon : he was warning them 
of the danger of gadding about to public places, and of the immo- 
rality of too much talking; and, I dare say, we might have had 
more valuable information from him, regarding the follies of wo- 
mankind, had not a tall Turk clapped my interpreter on the 
shoulder, and pointed him to be off. 

Although the ladies are veiled, and mufiled with the ugliest 
dresses in the world, yet it appears their modesty is alarmed in 
spite of all the coverings which they wear. One day, in the ba- 
zaar, a fat old body, with diamond rings on her fingers, that were 
tinged with henne, of a logwood color, came to the shop where- 1 
was purchasing slippers, with her son, a young Aga of six years 
of age, dressed in a braided frock coat, with a huge tassel to his 
fez, exceeding fat, and of a most solemn demeanor. The young 
Aga came for a pair of shoes, and his contortions were so delight- 
ful as he tried them, that I remained looking on with great 



THE SERAGLIO. 71 



pleasure, wishing for Leech to be at hand to sketch his lordship 
and his fat mamma, who sat on the counter. That lady fancied 
I was looking at her, though, as far as I could see, she had the 
figure and complexion of a roly-poly pudding ; and so, with quite 
a premature bashfulness, she sent me a message by the shoe- 
maker, ordering me to walk away if I had made my purchases, 
for that ladies of her rank did not choose to be stared at by 
strangers ; and I was obliged to take my leave, though with sin- 
cere regret, for the little lord had just squeezed himself into an 
attitude than which I never saw anything more ludicrous in 
General Tom Thumb. When the ladies of the seraglio come to 
that bazaar with their cor^e^e of infernal black eunuchs, strangers 
are told to move on briskly. I saw a bevy of about eight of these, 
with their aides-de-camp ; but they were wrapped up, and looked 
just as vulgar and ugly as the other women, and were not, I sup- 
pose, of the most beautiful sort. The poor devils are allowed to 
come out, half a dozen times in the year, to spend their little 
wretched allowance of pocket-money in purchasing trinkets and 
tobacco ; all the rest of the time they pursue the beautiful duties 
of their existence in the walls of the sacred harem. 

Though strangers are not allowed to see the interior of the 
cage, in which these birds of Paradise are confined ; yet many 
parts of the seraglio are free to the curiosity of visitors, who 
choose to drop a backsheesh here and there. I landed one morn- 
ing at the seraglio point from Galata, close by an ancient pleasure- 
house of the defunct sultan ; a vast broad-brimmed pavilion, that 
looks agreeable enough to be a dancing-room for ghosts now : 
there is another summer-house, the Guide Book cheerfully says, 
whither the sultan goes to sport with his women and mutes. A 
regiment of infantry, with their music at their head, were march- 
ing to exercise in the outer grounds of the seraglio ; and we fol- 
lowed them, and had an opportunity of seeing their evolutions, 
and hearing their bands, upon a fine green plain under the 
seraglio walls, where stands one solitary column, erected in 
memory of some triumph of some Byzantian emperor. 

There were three battalions of the Turkish infantry exercising 
here ; and they seemed to perform their evolutions in a very sat- 
isfactory manner : that is, they fired all together, and charged and 



72 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

halted in very straight lines, and bit off imaginary cartridge-tops 
with great fierceness and regularity, and made all their ramrods 
ring to measure, just like so many Christians. The men looked 
small, young, clumsy, and ill-built ; uncomfortable in their 
shabby European clothes ; and about the legs, especially, seemed 
exceedingly weak and ill-formed. Some score of military inva- 
lids were lolling in the sunshine, about a fountain and a marble 
summer-house, that stand on the ground, watching their com- 
rades' manoeuvres (as if they could never have enough of that 
delightful pastime) ; and these sick were much better cared for 
than their healthy companions. Each man had two dressing- 
gowns, one of white cotton, and an outer wrapper of warm brown 
woollen. Their heads were accommodated with wadded cotton 
night-caps ; and it seemed to me from their condition, and from 
the excellent character of the military hospitals, that it would be 
much more wholesome to be ill than to be well in the Turkish 
service. 

Facing this green esplanade, and the Bosphorus shining beyond 
it, rise the great walls of the outer seraglio gardens ; huge 
masses of ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of nume- 
rous kiosks and out-houses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so 
as to hide the beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying 
eyes and telescopes. We could not catch a glance of a single 
figure moving in these great pleasure-grounds. The road winds 
round the walls ; and the outer park, which is likewise planted 
with trees, and diversified by garden-plots and cottages, had more 
the air of the out-buildings of a homely English park, than of a 
palace which we must all have imagined to be the most stately in 
the world. The most common-place water carts were passing 
here and there ; roads were being repaired in the Macadamite 
manner ; and carpenters were mending the park-palings, just as 
they do in Hampshire. The next thing you might fancy would 
be the sultan walking out with a spud and a couple of dogs, on 
the way to meet the post-bag and the Saint James's Chronicle. 

The palace is no palace at all. It is a great town of pavilions, 
built without order, here and there, according to the fancy of 
succeeding lights of the universe, or their favorites. The only 
row of domes which looked particularly regular or stately, were 



THE SERAGLIO. 73 



the kitchens. As you examined the buildings they had a ruinous, 
dilapidated look, — they are not furnished, it is said, with particu- 
lar splendor, — not a bit more elegantly than Miss Jones's semi- 
nary for young ladies, which we may be sure is much more 
comfortable than the extensive establishment of his Highness 
Abdul Medjid. 

In the little stable I thought to see some marks of royal mag- 
nificence, and some horses worthy of the king of all kings. But 
the Sultan is said to be a very timid horseman : the animal that 
is always kept saddled for him did not look to be worth twenty 
pounds ; and the rest of the horses in the shabby, dirty stalls, 
were small, ill kept, common-looking brutes. You might see bet- 
ter, it seemed to me, at a country inn stable of any market-day. 

The kitchens are the most sublime part of the seraglio. There 
are nine of these great halls, for all ranks, from his highness down- 
wards ; where many hecatombs are roasted daily, according to 
the accounts ; and where cooking goes on with a savage Homeric 
grandeur. Chimneys are despised in these primitive halls ; so 
that the roofs are black with the smoke of hundreds of furnaces, 
which escapes through apertures in the domes above. These, 
too, give the chief light in the rooms, which streams downwards, 
and thickens and mingles with the smoke, and so murkily lights 
up hundreds of swarthy figures busy about the spits and the caul- 
drons. Close to the door by which we entered, they were making 
pastry for the sultanas ; and the chief pastrycook, who knew my 
guide, invited us courteously to see the process, and partake of 
the delicacies prepared for those charming lips. How those sweet 
lips must shine after eating these puffs ! First, huge sheets of 
dough are rolled out till the paste is about as thin as silver paper : 
then an artist forms the dough-muslin into a sort of drapery, curl- 
ing it round and round in many fanciful and pretty shapes, until 
it is all got into the circumference of a round metal tray in which 
it is baked. Then the cake is drenched in grease most profusely ; 
and, finally, a quantity of syrup is poured over it, when the de- 
lectable mixture is complete. The moon-faced ones are said to 
devour immense quantities of this wholesome food • and, in fact, 
are eating grease and sweetmeats from morning till night. I 
5 



74 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

don't like to think what the consequences may be, or allude to 
the agonies which the delicate creatures must inevitably suffer. 

The good-natured chief pastrycook filled a copper basin with 
greasy puffs; and. dipping a dubious label into a large cauldron, 
containing several gallons of syrup, poured a liberal portion over 
the cakes, and invited us to eat. One of the tarts was quite enough 
for me ; and I excused myself on the plea of ill health from im- 
bibing any more grease and sugar. But my companion, the dra- 
goman, finished some forty puffs in a twinkling. They slipped 
down his opened jaws as the sausages do down Clown's throat in 
a pantomime. His moustachios shone with grease, and it dripped 
down his beard and fingers. We thanked the chief pastrycook, 
and rewarded him handsomely for the tarts. It is something to 
have eaten of the dainties prepared for the ladies of the harem ; 
but I think Mr. Cockle ought to get the names of the chief sultanas 
among the exalted patrons of his Antibilious Pills. 

From the kitchens we passed into the second court of the se- 
raglio, beyond which is death. The guide book only hints at the 
dangers which would befal a stranger caught prying in the mys- 
terious first court of the palace. I have read Bluebeard, and 
don't care for peeping into forbidden doors ; so that the second 
court was quite enough for me ; the pleasure of beholding it be- 
ing heightened, as it were, by the notion of the invisible danger 
sitting next door, with uplifted scimetar ready to fall on — present 
though not seen. 

A cloister runs along one side of this court ; opposite is the 
hall of the divan, " large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, 
after the Moorish manner, plain enough." The Grand Vizir sits 
in this place, and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be con- 
ducted hence on horseback, attired with robes of honor. But the 
ceremony is now, I believe, discontinued ; the English envoy, at 
any rate, is not allowed to receive any backsheesh, and goes away 
as he came, in the habit of his own nation. On the right is a 
door leading into the interior of the seraglio ; none pass through it 
but stch as are sent for, the guide book says : it is impossible to 
top the terror of that description. 

About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans, and 
pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses ; and among them, 



THE SUBLIME PORTE. 75 

sunning himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old, fat, wrinkled, dis- 
mal white eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head 
sunk into his chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed in- 
capable to hold up his floated old body. He squeaked out some 
surly reply to my friend the Dragoman, who, softened and sweet- 
ened by the tarts he had just been devouring, was, no doubt, 
anxious to be polite ; and the poor worthy fellow walked away 
rather crest-fallen at this return of his salutation, and hastened 
me out of the place. 

The palace of the seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the 
hall of the ambassadors, the impenetrable gate guarded by eunuchs 
and ichoglans, has a romantic look in print ; but not so in reality. 
Most of the marble is wood, almost all the gilding is faded, the 
guards are shabby, the foolish perspectives painted on .the walls 
are half cracked off. The place looks like Vauxhall in the day- 
time. 

We passed out of the second court under The Sublime Porte, 
which is like a fortified gate of a German town of the middle ages, 
into the outer court, round which are public offices, hospitals, and 
dwellings of the multifarious servants of the palace. The place 
is very wide and picturesque ; there is a pretty church of Byzan- 
tine architecture at the further end ; and in the midst of the court 
a magnificent plane tree, of prodigious dimensions and fabulous 
age, according to the guides ; Saint Sophia tower, in the further 
distance : and from here, perhaps, is the best view of its light 
swelling domes and beautiful proportions. The Porte itself, too, 
forms an excellent subject for the sketcher, if the officers of the 
court will permit him to design it. I made the attempt, and a 
couple of Turkish beadles looked on very good-naturedly for some 
time at the progress of the drawing; but a good number of other 
spectators speedily joined them, and made a crowd, which is not 
permitted, it would seem, In the seraglio ; so I was told to pack 
up my portfolio, and remove the cause of the disturbance, and 
lost my drawing of the Ottoman Porte. 

I don't think I have anything more to say about the city, which 
has not been much better told by graver travellers. I with them 
could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that 
warned me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of 



76 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

an empire ; and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and 
oppression. I even saw a Turkish lady drive up to Sultan 
Achmet's mosque in a Brougham. Is not that a subject to mo- 
ralize upon ? And might one not draw endless conclusions from 
it, that the knell of the Turkish dominion is rung ; that the Eu- 
ropean spirit and institutions once admitted can never be rooted 
out again ; and that the scepticism prevalent amongst the higher 
orders must descend ere very long to the lower ; and the cry of 
the Muezim from the mosque become a mere ceremony 1 

But as I only stayed eight days in this place, and knew not a 
syllable of the language, perhaps it is as well to pretermit any 
disquisitions about the spirit of the people. I can only say that 
they looked to be very good-natured, handsome, and lazy ; that 
the women's yellow slippers are very ugly ; that the kabobs at 
the shop, hard by the rope bazaar, -are very hot and good ; and 
that at the Armenian cook-shops they serve you delicious fish, 
and a stout raisin wine of no small merit. There came in, as we 
sat and dined there at sunset, a good old Turk, who called for a 
penny fish, and sat down under a tree very humbly, and ate it 
with his own bread. We made that jolly old Mussulman happy 
with a quart of the raisin wine ; and his eyes twinkled with every 
fresh glass, and he wiped his old beard delighted, and talked and 
chirped a good deal, and, I dare say, told us the whole state of the 
empire. He was the only Mussulman with whom I attained any 
degree of intimacy during my stay in Constantinople ; and you 
will see that, for obvious reasons, I cannot divulge the particulars 
of our conversation. 

" You have nothing to say, and you own it," says somebody ; 
" then why write ?" That question perhaps (between ourselves) 
I have put likewise ; and yet, my dear sir, there are some things 
worth remembering even in this brief letter : that woman in the 
brougham is an idea of significance ; that comparison of the 
seraglio to Vauxhall in the day time, is a true and real one ; from 
both of which your own great soul and ingenious philosophic 
spirit may draw conclusions, that I myself have modestly forborne 
to press. You are too clever to require a moral to be tacked to 
all the fables you read, as it is done for children in the spelling- 
books ; else I would tell you that the government of the Ottoman 



THE SCHOOLMASTER IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 77 

Porte seems to be as rotten, as wrinkled and as feeble as the old 
eunuch I saw crawling about it in the sun ; that when the lady- 
drove up in a brougham to Sultan Achmet, I felt that the school- 
master was really abroad ; and that the crescent will go out be- 
fore that luminary, as meekly as the moon does before the sun. 



78 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



VIII. 



RHODES. 



The sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa, brought a great number 
of passengers together, and our decks were covered with 
Christian, Jew, and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles and 
Russians, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks ; on the 
deck were squatted several little colonies of people of different 
race and persuasion. There was a Greek Papa, a noble figure 
with a flowing and venerable white beard, who had been living 
on bread and water for I don't know how many years, in order to 
save a little money to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There 
were several families of Jewish Rabbles, who celebrated their 
" feast of tabernacles " on board ; their chief men performing 
worship twice or thrice a day, dressed in their pontifical habits, 
and bound with phylacteries : and there were Turks, who had 
their own ceremonies and usages, and wisely kept aloof from their 
neighbors of Israel. 

The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility of 
description ; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease 
of their venerable garments and faces, the horrid messes cooked 
in the filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the squalor 
of mats, pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew friends, 
could hardly be painted by Swift, in his dirtiest mood, and cannot 
be, of course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What 
would they say in Baker Street to sonie sights with which our 
new friends favored us? What would your ladyship have said 
if you had seen the interesting Greek nun combing her hair over 
the cabin — combing it with the natural fingers, and averse to 
slaughter, flinging the delicate little intruders, which she found in 
the course of her investigation, gently into the great cabin ? Our 



JEW PILGRIMS. 79 

attention was a good deal occupied in watching the strange ways 
and customs of the various comrades of ours. 

The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones 
to rest in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceed- 
ing rigor the offices of their religion. At morning and evening 
you were sure to see the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white 
robes, bowing over their books, at prayer. Once a week, on the 
eve before the sabbath, there was a general washing in Jewry, 
which sufficed until the ensuing Friday. The men wore long 
gowns and caps of fur, or else broad-brimmed hats, or in service 
time, bound on their heads little iron boxes, with the sacred name 
engraved on them. Among the lads there were some beautiful 
faces : and among the women your humble servant discovered one 
who was a perfect rose-bud of beauty, when first emerging from 
her Friday's toilette, and for a day or two afterwards, until each 
succeeding day's smut darkened those fresh and delicate cheeks of 
hers. We had some very rough weather in the course of the 
passage from Constantinople to Jaffa, and the sea washed over and 
over our Israelitish friends and their baggages and bundles ; but 
though they were said to be rich, they would not afford to pay for 
cabin shelter. One father of a family, finding his progeny half 
drowned in a squall, vowed he would pay for a cabin ; but the 
weather was somewhat finer the next day, and he could not 
squeeze out his dollars, and the ship's authorities would not admit 
him except upon payment. 

This unwillingness to part with money is not only found 
amongst the followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, and 
Christians too. When we went to purchase in the bazaars, after 
offering money for change, the honest fellows would frequently 
keep back several piastres, and when urged to refund, would give 
most dismally ; and begin doling out penny by penny, and utter 
pathetic prayers to their customer not to take any more. I bought 
five or six pounds worth of Broussa silks for the womankind, in 
the bazaar at Constantinople, and the rich Armenian who sold 
them, begged for three-halfpence to pay his boat to Galata. 
There is something naif and amusing in this exhibition of cheat- 
ery — this simple cringing and wheedling and passion for two- 
pence-halfpenny. It was pleasant to give a millionaire beggar an 



80 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

alms, and laugh in his face, and say, " There, Dives, there's a 
penny for you : be happy, you poor old swindling scoundrel, as 
far as a penny goes." I used to watch these Jews on shore, and 
making bargains with one another as soon as they came on board ; 
the battle between vendor and purchaser was an agony — they 
shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another passionately ; 
their handsome, noble faces assumed a look of wo — quite an 
heroic eagerness and sadness about a farthing. 

Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy 
provisions, and it was curious to see their dealings : there was 
our venerable Rabbi, who, robed in white and silver, and bending 
over his book at the morning service, looked like a patriarch, and 
whom I saw chaffering about a fowl with a brother Rhodian 
Israelite. How they fought over the body of that lean animal ! 
The street swarmed with Jews — goggling eyes looked out from 
the old carved casements — hooked noses issued from the low, an- 
tique doors — Jew boys driving donkeys — H!ebrew mothers nursing 
children ; dusty, tawdry, ragged young beauties — and most 
venerable grey-bearded fathers — were all gathered round about 
the affair of the hen ! And at the same time that our Rabbi was 
arranging the price of it, his children were instructed to procure 
bundles of green branches to decorate the ship during their 
feast. Think of the centuries during which these wonderful 
people have remained unchanged ; and how, from the days of 
Jacob downwards, they have believed and swindled ! 

The Rhodian Jews, with their genius for filth, have made their 
quarter of the noble, desolate old town, the most ruinous and 
wretched of all. The escutcheons of the proud old knights are 
still carved over the doors, whence issue these miserable greasy 
hucksters and pedlars. The Turks respected these emblems of 
the brave enemies whom they had overcome, and left them un- 
touched ; when the French seized Malta they were by no means 
so delicate. They effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot- 
headed eagerness ; and a few years after they had torn down the 
coats of arms of the gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were 
busy devising heraldry for themselves, and were wild to be barons 
and counts of the empire. 

The chivalrous relics at Rhodes are very superb. I know of 



RELICS OF CHIVALRY. 81 

no buildings, whose stately and picturesque aspect seenris to cor- 
respond better with one's notions of their proud founders. The 
towers and gates are warlike and strong, but beautiful and aris- 
tocratic : you see that they must have been high-bred gentlemen 
who built them. The edifices appear in almost as perfect a con- 
dition as when they were in the occupation of the noble knights 
of St. John; and they have this advantage over modern fortifi- 
cations, that they are a thousand times more picturesque. An- 
cient war condescended to ornament itself, and built fine carved 
castles and vaulted gates: whereas, to judge from Gibraltar and 
Malta, nothing can be less romantic than the modern military 
architecture ; which sternly regards the fighting, without in the 
least heeding the war-paint. Some of the huge artillery, with 
which the place was defended, still lies in the bastions ; and the 
touch-holes of the guns are preserved by being covered with 
rusty old corslets, worn by defenders of the fort three hundred 
years ago. The Turks, who battered down chivalry, seem to be 
waiting their turn of destruction now. In walking through 
Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the signs of this 
double decay. For instance, in the streets of the knights, you 
see noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of superb 
knights, who lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and mur- 
dered the Turks ; and were the most gallant pirates of the in- 
land seas ; and made vows of chastity, and robbed and ravished ; 
and, professing humility, would admit none but nobility into their 
order ; and died recommending themselves to sweet St. John, 
and calmly hoping for heaven in consideration of all the heathen 
they had slain. When this superb fraternity was obliged to 
yield to courage as great as theirs, faith as sincere, and to rob- 
bers even more dexterous and audacious than the noblest knight 
who ever sang a canticle to the Virgin, these halls were filled 
by magnificent Pashas and Agas, who lived here in the intervals 
of war, and, having conquered its best champions, despised Chris- 
tendom and chivalry pretty much as an Englishman despises a 
Frenchman. Now the famous house is let to a shabby merchant, 
who has his little beggarly shop in the bazaar ; to a small officer, 
who ekes out his wretched pension by swindling, and who gets 
his pay in bad coin. Mahometanism pays in pewter now, in 
5* 



82 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

place of silver and gold. The lords of the world have run to 
seed. The powerless old sword frightens nobody now — the steel 
is turned to pewter too, somehow, and will no longer shear a 
Christian head off any shoulders. In the Crusades my wicked 
sympathies have always been with the Turks. They seem to 
me the best Christians of the two ; more humane, less brutally 
presumptuous about their own merits, and mor% generous in 
esteeming their neighbors. As far as I can get at the authentic 
story, Saladin is a pearl of refinement compared to the brutal 
beef-eating Richard — about whom Sir Walter Scott has led all 
the world astray. When shall we have a real account of those 
times and heroes — no good-humored pageant, like those of the 
Scott romances — but a real authentic story to instruct and 
frighten honest people of the present day, and make them thank- 
ful that the grocer governs the world now in place of the baron ? 
Meanwhile a man of tender feelings may be pardoned for twad- 
dling a little over this sad spectacle of the decay of two of the 
great institutions of the world. Knighthood is gone — amen ; it 
expired with dignity, its face to the foe : and old Mahometanism 
is lingering about, just ready to drop. But it is unseemly to see 
such a Grand Potentate in such a state of decay ; the son of 
Bajazet Ilderim insolvent ; the descendants of the Prophets bul- 
lied by Calmucs and English and whippersnapper Frenchmen ; 
the Fountain of Magnificence done up, and obliged to coin pew- 
ter ! Think of the poor dear houris in Paradise, how sad they 
must look as the arrivals of the Faithful become less and less 
frequent every day. I can fancy the place beginning to wear 
the fatal Vauxhall look of the seraglio, and which has pursued 
me ever since I saw it ; the fountains of eternal wine are begin- 
ning to run rather dry, and of a questionable liquor; the ready- 
roasted meat trees may cry, " Come, eat me," every now and 
then, in a faint voice, without any gravy in it — but the Faithful 
begin to doubt about the quality of the victuals. Of nights you 
may see the houris sitting sadly under them, darning their faded 
muslins : Ali, Omar, and the Imaums are reconciled and have 
gloomy consultations : and the Chief of the Faithful himself, the 
awful camel-driverj the supernatural husband of Kadisheh, sits 
alone in a tumble-down kiosk, thinking moodily of the destiny 



A DRAGOMAN. 83 



that is impending over him ; and of the day when his gardens of 
bliss shall be as vacant as the bankrupt Olympus. 

All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and 
ruin, except a few consuls' houses planted on the sea-side, here 
and there, with bright flags flaunting in the sun ; fresh paint ; 
English crockery ; shining mahogany, &c., — so many emblems 
of the new prosperity of their trade, while the old inhabitants 
were going to rack — the fine church of St. John, converted into a 
mosque, is a ruined church, with a ruined mosque inside ; the 
fortifications are mouldering away, as much as time will let 
them. There was considerable bustle and stir about the little 
port ; but it was a bustle of people, who looked for the most part 
to be beggars ; and I saw no shop in the bazaar, that seemed to 
have the value of a pedlar's pack. 

I took, by way of guide, a young fellow from Berlin, a journey- 
man shoemaker, who had just been making a tour in Syria, and 
who professed to speak both Arabic and Turkish quite fluently, 
which I thought he might have learned when he was a student at 
college, before he began his profession of shoemaking ; but I 
found he only knew about three words of Turkish, which were 
produced on every occasion, as I walked under his guidance 
through the desolate streets of the noble old town. We went out 
upon the lines of fortification; through an ancient gate and guard- 
house, where once a chapel probably stood, and of which the 
roofs were richly carved and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish 
soldiers lolled about the gate now — a couple of boys on a donkey ; 
a grinning slave on a mule ; a pair of women flapping along in 
yellow papooshes- ; a basket-maker sitting under an antique carved 
portal, and chatting or howling as he platted his osiers ; a peace- 
ful well of water, at which knights' chargers had drunk, and at 
which the double- boyed donkey was now refreshing himself — 
would have made a pretty picture for a sentimental artist. As 
he sits, and endeavors to make a sketch of this plaintive little 
comedy, a shabby dignitary of the island comes clattering by on 
a thirty-shilling horse, and two or three of the ragged soldiers 
leave their pipes to salute him as he passes under the Gothic arch- 
way. 



84 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

The astonishing brightness and clearness of the sky under 
which the island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything 
I had seen — not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands 
so yellow, or water so magnificently blue. The houses of the 
people along the shore were but poor tenements, with humble 
court-yards and gardens ; but every fig-tree was gilded and 
bright, as if it were in a Hesperian orchard ; the palms, planted 
here and there, rose with a sort of halo of light round about them ; 
the creepers on the walls quite dazzled with the brilliancy of their 
flowers and leaves ; the people lay in the cool shadows, happy 
and idle, with handsome solemn faces ; nobody seemed to be at 
work ; they only talked a very little, as if idleness and silence 
were a condition of the delightful shining atmosphere in which 
they lived. 

We went down to an old mosque by the seashore, with a cluster 
of ancient domes hard by it, blazing in the sunshine, and carved 
all over with names of Allah, and titles of old pirates and generals 
who reposed there. The guardian of the mosque sat in the gar- 
den-court, upon a high wooden pulpit, lazily wagging his body to 
and fro, and singing the praises of the prophet gently through his 
nose, as the breeze stirred through the trees over head, and cast 
chequered and changing shadows over the paved court, and the 
little fountains, and the nasal psalmist on his perch. On one 
side was the mosque, into which you could see, with its white 
walls and cool matted floor, and qualt\t carved pulpit and orna- 
ments, and nobody at prayers. In the middle distance rose up 
the noble towers and battlements of the kmghtly town, with the 
deep sea-line behind them. 

It really seemed as if everybody was to have a sort of sober 
cheerfulness, and must yield to indolence under this charming 
atmosphere. I went into the court-yard by the sea-shore (where 
a few lazy ships were lying, with no one on board), and found it 
was the prison of the place. The door was as wide open as 
Westminster Hall. Some prisoners, one or two soldiers and 
functionaries, and some prisoners' wives, were lolling under an 
arcade by a fountain ; other criminals were strolling about here 
and there, their chains clinking quite cheerfully : and they and 
the guards and officials came up chatting quite friendly together, 



RHODES. 85 



and gazed languidly over the portfolio, as I was endeavoring to 
get the likeness of one or two of these comfortable malefactors. 
One old and wrinkled she-criminal, whom I had selected on ac- 
count of the peculiar hideousness of her countenance, covered it 
up with a dirty cloth, at which there was a general roar of laugh- 
ter among this good-humored auditory of cut-throats, pickpockets, 
and policemen. The only symptoms of a prison about the place, 
was a door, across which a couple of sentinels were stretched, 
yawning ; while within lay three freshly-caught pirates, chained 
by the leg. They had committed some murders of a very late 
date, and were awaiting sentence ; but their wives were allowed 
to communicate freely with them : and it seemed to me, that if 
half a dozen friends would set them free, and they themselves 
had energy enough to move, the sentinels would be a great deal 
too lazy to walk after them. 

The combined influence of Rhodes and Rhamazan, I suppose, 
had taken possession of my friend, the schuster-gesell from Berlin. 
As soon as he received his fee, he cut me at once, and went and 
lay down by a fountain near the port, and ate grapes out of a 
dirty pocket-handkerchief. Other Christian idlers lay near him, 
dozing, or sprawling in the boats, or listlessly munching water- 
melons. Along the coffee-houses of the quay sat hundreds more, 
with no better employment ; and the captain of the Iberia and 
his officers, and several of the passengers in that famous steam- 
ship, were in this company, being idle with all their might. Two 
or three adventurous young men went off to see the valley where 
the dragon was killed ; but others, more susceptible of the real 
influence of the island, I am sure would not have moved, though 
we had been told that the Colossus himself was taking a walk 
half a mile off. 



86 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



IX. 

THE WHITE SQUALL. 

On deck, beneath the awning, 
I dozing lay and yawning ; 
It was the grey of dawning. 

Ere yet the sun arose ; 
And above the funnel's roaring, 
And the fitful wind's deploring, 
I heard the cabin snoring 

With universal nose. 
I could hear the passengers snorting, 
I envied their disporting, 
Vainly I was courting 

The pleasure of a doze. 

So I lay, and wondered why light 
Came not, and watched the twilight 
And the glimmer of the skylight, 

That shot across the deck ; 
And the binnacle pale and steady. 
And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, 
And the sparks in fiery eddy. 

That whirled from the chimney neck 
In our jovial floating prison 
There was sleep from fore to mizen, 
And never a star had risen 

The hazy sky to speck. 

Strange company we harbored ; 
We'd a hundred Jews to larboard. 
Unwashed, uncombed, unbarbered, 
Jews black, and brown, and grey ; 



i 



THE WHITE SQUALL. 87 

With terror it would seize ye, 
And make your souls uneasy, 
To see those Rabbis greasy, 

Who did naught but scratch and pray : 
Their dirty children puking, 
Their dirty saucepans cooking. 
Their dirty fingers hooking 

Their swarming fleas away. 

To starboard Turks and Greeks were. 
Whiskered, and brown their cheeks were, 
Enormous wide their breeks were. 

Their pipes did pufFalway ; 
Each on his mat allotted. 
In silence smoked and squatted. 
Whilst round their children trotted. 

In pretty, pleasant play. 
He can't but smile who traces 
The smiles on those brown faces. 
And the pretty prattling graces 

Of those small heathens gay. 

And so the hours kept tolling. 
And through the ocean rolling, 
Went the brave Iberia bowling 
Before the break of day 

When A Squall upon a sudden. 
Came o'er the waters scudding ; 
And the clouds began to gather, 
And the sea was lashed to lather. 
And the lowering thunder grumbled. 
And the lightning jumped and tumbled, 
And the ship, and all the ocean, 
Woke up in wild commotion. 
Then the wind set up a howling. 
And the poodle-dog a yowling, 
And the cocks began a crowing, 
And the old cow raised a lowing, 



88 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

As she heard the tempest blowing : 

And fowls and geese did cackle, 

And the cordage and the tackle 

Began to shriek and crackle ; 

And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, 

And down the deck in runnels ; 

And the rushing water soaks all, 

From the seamen in the fo'ksal, 

To the stokers, whose black faces 

Peer out of their bed places ; 

And the captain he was bawling. 

And the sailors pulling, hauling ; 

And the quarter-deck tarpauling 

Was shivered in the squalling ; 

And the passengers awaken. 

Most pitifully shaken ; 

And the steward jumps up, and hastens 

For the necessary basins. 

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered. 
And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered, 
As the plunging waters met them, 
And splashed and overset them ; 
And they call in their emergence 
Upon countless saints and virgins ; 
And their marrowbones are bended, 
And they think the world is ended. 

And the Turkish women for'ard 
Were frightened and behorror'd ; 
And, shrieking and bewildering, 
The mothers clutched their children ; 
The men sung, " Allah ! Illah ! 
Mashallah Bismillah !" 
As the warring waters doused them ; 
And splashed them and soused them, 
And they called upon the Prophet, 
And thought but little of it. 



THE WHITE SQUALL. 89 

Then all the fleas in Jewry 
Jumped up and bit like fury ; 
And the progeny of Jacob 
Did on the main-deck wake up 
(I wot those greasy Rabbins 
Would never pay for cabins) ; 
And each man moaned and jabbered in 
His filthy Jewish gaberdine, 
In wo and lamentation, 
And howling consternation. 
And the splashing water drenches 
Their dirty brats and wenches ; 
And they crawl from bales and benches. 
In a hundred thousand stenches. 

This was the White Squall famous, 
Which latterly o'ercame us, 
And which all will well remember 
On the 28th September ; 
When a Prussian captain of Lancers 
(Those tight-laced, whiskered prancers) 
Came on the deck astonished, 
By that wild squall admonished, 
And wondering cried, " Potz tausei::!, 
Wie ist der Stiirm jetzt brausend V 
And looked at Captain Lewis, 
Who calmly stood and blew his 
Cigar in all the bustle. 
And scorned the tempest's tussle. 
And oft we've thought hereafter 
How he beat the storm to laughter ; 
For well he knew his vessel 
With that vain wind could wrestle ; 
And when a wreck we thought her, 
And doomed ourselves to slaughter, 
How gaily he fought her. 
And through the hubbub brought her 



90 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

And, as the tempest caught her, 

Cried, " George ! some brandy and water !' 

And when, its force expended, 
The harmless storm was ended, 
And, as the sunrise splendid 

Came blushing o'er the sea ; 
I thought, as day was breaking, 
My little girls were waking. 
And smiling, and making 

A prayer at home for me. 



TELMESSUS— BEYROUT. 91 



X. 



TELMESSUS BEYROUT. 



There should have been a poet in our company to describe that 
charming little bay of Glaucus, into which we entered on the 
28th of September, in 'the first steamboat that ever disturbed its 
beautiful waters. You can't put down in prose that delicious epi- 
sode of natural poetry : it ought to be done in a symphony, full 
of sweet melodies and swelling harmonies ; or sung in a strain 
of clear crystal iambics, such as Milnes knows how to write. A 
mere map, drawn in words, gives the mind no notion of that ex- 
quisite nature. What do mountains become in type, or rivers in 
Mr. Vizetelly's best brevier ? Here lies the sweet bay, gleaming 
peaceful in the rosy sunshine : green islands dip here and there 
in its waters : purple mountains swell circling round it ; and 
towards them, rising from the bay, stretches a rich green plain, 
fruitful with herbs and various foliage, in the midst of which the 
white houses*- twinkle. I can see a little minaret, and some 
spreading palm trees ; but, beyond these, the description would 
answer as well for Bantry Bay as well as Makri. You could 
write so far, nay, much more particularly and grandly, without 
seeing the place at all, and after reading Beaufort's " Carama- 
nia," which gives you not the least notion of it. 

Suppose the great hydrographer of the Admiralty himself can't 
describe it, who surveyed the place ; suppose Mr. Fellowes, who 
discovered it afterwards — suppose I say Sir John Fellowes, Knt. — 
can't do it (and I defy any man of imagination to get an impres- 
sion of Telmessus from his book) — can you, vain man, hope to 
try ? The effect of the artist, as I take it, ought to be, to produce 
upon his hearer's mind, by his art, an effect something similar to 
that produced on his own, by the sight of the natural object. 
Only music, or the best poetry, can do this. Keats's " Ode to the 



92 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Grecian Urn " is the best description I know of that sweet, old, 
silent ruin of Telmessus. After you have once seen it, the re- 
membrance remains with you, like a tune from Mozart, which he 
seems to have caught out of heaven, and which rings sweet har- 
mony in your ears for ever after ! It's a benefit for all after life ! 
You have but to shut your eyes, and think, and recall it, and the 
delightful vision comes smiling back, to your order ! — the divine 
air — the delicious little pageant, which nature set before you on 
this lucky day. 

Here is the entry made in the note book on the eventful day : — 
In the morning steamed into the bay of Glaucus — landed at 
Makri — cheerful old desolate village — theatre by the beautiful 
sea-shore — great fertility, oleanders — a palm tree in the midst of 
the great village, spreading out like a sultan's aigrette — sculp- 
tured caverns, or tombs, up the mountain — camels over the 
bridge. 

Perhaps it is best for a man of fancy to make his own land- 
scape out of these materials : to group the couched camels under 
the plane trees ; the little crowd of wandering, ragged heathens 
come down to the calm water, to behold the nearing steamer ; to 
fancy a mountain, in the sides of which some scores of tombs are 
rudely carved ; pillars and porticos, and Doric entablatures. But 
it is of the little theatre that he must make the most beautiful 
picture — a charming little place of festival, lying out on the 
shore, and looking over the sweet bay and the swelling purple 
islands. No theatre-goer ever looked out on a fairer scene. It 
encourages poetry, idleness, delicious sensual reverie. O Jones! 
friend of my heart ! would you not like to be a white-robed 
Greek, lolling languidly on the cool benches here, and pouring 
compliments (in the Ionic dialect) into the rosy ears of Nesera ? 
Instead of Jones, your name should be lonides ; instead of a silk 
hat, you should wear a chaplet of roses in your hair : you would 
not listen to the choruses they were singing on the stage, for the 
voice of the fair one would be whispering a rendezvous for the 
mesonukiiais liorais, and my lonides would have no ear for aught 
beside. Y^onder, in the mountain, they would carve a Doric cave 
temple, to receive your urn when all was done ; and you would 
be accompanied thither by a dirge of the surviving lonidse. The 



HALIL PACHA. 93 



caves of the dead are empty now, however, and their place knows 
them not any more among the festal haunts of the living. But, 
by way of supplying the choric melodies, sung here in old time, 
one of our companions mounted on the scene and spouted, 

" My name is Nerval. " 

On the same day we lay to for awhile at another ruined thea- 
tre, that of Antiphilos. The Oxford men, fresh with recollections 
of the little-go, bounded away up the hill on which it lies to the 
ruin, measured the steps of the theatre, and calculated the width 
of the scene ; while others, less active, watched them with tele- 
scopes from the ship's sides, as they plunged in and out of the 
stones and hollows. 

Two days after, the scene was quite changed. We were out 
of sight of the classical country, and lay in St. George's Bay, 
behind a huge mountain, upon which St. George fought the dra- 
gon, and rescued the lovely lady Sabra, the king of Babylon's 
daughter. The Turkish fleet was lying about us, commanded 
by that Halil Pacha, whose two children the two last sultans 
murdered. The crimson flag, with the star and crescent, floated 
at the stern of his ship. Our diplomatist put on his uniform 
and cordons, and paid his excellency a visit. He spoke in rap- 
ture, when he returned, of the beauty and order of the ship, 
and the urbanity of the infidel admiral. He sent us bottles of 
ancient Cyprus wine to drink : and the captain of her Majesty's 
ship, " Trump," alongside which we were lying, confirmed that 
good opinion of the Capitan Pasha, which the reception of the 
above present led us to entertain, by relating many instances of 
his friendliness and hospitalities. Captain G said, the Turk- 
ish ships were as well manned, as well kept, and as well ma- 
noeuvred, as any vessels in any service ; and intimated a desire 
to command a Turkish seventy-fouE|^and a perfect willingness to 
fight her against a French ship of the same size. But I heartily 
trust he will neither embrace the Mahometan opinions, nor be 
called upon to engage any seventy-four whatever. If he do, 
let us hope he will have his own men to fight with. If the 
crew of the " Trump " were all like the crew of the captain's 
boat, they need fear no two hundred and fifty men out of any coun- 



94 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

try, with any Joinville at their head. We were carried on shore 
by this boat. For two years, during which the " Trump " had 
been lying off Beyrout, none of the men but those eight had 
ever set foot on shore. Mustn't it be a happy life ? We were 
landed at the busy quay of Beyrout, flanked by the castle that 
the fightincr old commodore half battered down. 

Along the Beyrout quays civilisation flourishes under the flags 
of the consul, which are streaming out over the yellow buildings 
in the clear air. Hither she brings from England her produce 
of marine stores and M^oollens, her crockeries, her portable soups, 
and her bitter ale. Hither she has brought politeness, and the 
last modes from Paris. They were exhibited in the person of a 
pretty lady, superintending the great French store, and who, 
seeing a stranger sketching on the quay, sent forward a man with 
a chair, to accommodate that artist, and greeted him with a bow 
and a smile, such as only can be found in France. Then she 
fell to talking with a young French officer, with a beard, who 
was greatly smitten with her. They were making love just as 
they do on the Boulevard. An Arab porter left his bales, and 
the camel he was unloading, to come and look at the sketch. 
Two stumpy, flat-faced Turkish soldiers, in red caps and white 
undresses, peered over the paper. A noble little Lebanonian 
girl, with a deep yellow face, and curly dun-colored hair, and a 
blue tattooed chin, and for all clothing, a little ragged shift of 
blue cloth, stood by like a little statue, holding her urn, and 
stared with wondering brown eyes. How magnificently blue the 
water was ! — how bright the flags and buildings as they shone 
above it, and the lines of the rigging tossing in the bay ! The 
white crests of the blue waves jumped and sparkled like quick- 
silver ; the shadows were as broad and cool as the lights were 
brilliant and rosy ; the battered old towers of the commodore 
looked quite cheerful in the delicious atmosphere ; and the moun- 
tains beyond were of an amemyst color. The French officer and 
the lady went on chattering quite happily about love, the last new 
bonnet, or the battle of Isly, or the " Juif Errant ;" how neatly 
her gown and sleeves fitted her pretty little person ! We had not 
seen a woman for a month, except honest Mrs. Flanigan, the 
stewardess, and the ladies of our party, and the tips of the noses 



A PORTRAIT. 95 



of the Constantinople beauties, as they passed by leering from 
their yakmacs, waddling and plapping in their odious yellow 
papooshes. 

And this day is to be marked with a second white stone ; for 
having given the lucky writer of the present, occasion to behold 
a second beauty. This was a native Syrian damsel, who bore 
the sweet name of Mariam. So it was, she stood as two of us 
(I mention the number for fear of scandal) took her picture. 

So it was, that the good-natured black cook looked behind her 
young mistress, with a benevolent grin, that only the admirable 
Leslie could paint. 

Mariam was the sister of the young guide, whom we hired to 
show us through the town ; and to let us be cheated in the 
purchase of gilt scarfs and handkerchiefs, which strangers think 
proper to buy. And before a drawing could be made, many 
were the stratagems the wily artists, were obliged to employ, 
to subdue the shyness of the little Mariam. In the first place, 
she would stand behind the door (from which in the darkness 
her beautiful black eyes gleamed out like penny tapers); nor 
could the entreaties of her brother and mama bring her from 
that hiding place. In order to conciliate the latter, we began by 
making a picture of her too — that is, not of her, who was an 
enormous old fat woman in yellow, quivering all over with strings 
of pearls, and necklaces of sequins, and other ornaments, the 
which descended from her neck, and down her ample stomacher — 
we did not depict that big old woman, who would have been 
frightened at an accurate representation of her own enormity ; 
but an ideal being, all grace and beauty, dressed in her costume, 
and still simpering before me, in my sketch-book, like a lady in 
a book of fashions. 

This portrait was shown to' the old woman, who handed it over 
to the black cook, who, grinning, carried it to little Mariam — and 
the result is, that the young creature stepped forward, and sub- 
mitted. 

A very snug and happy family did this of Mariam's appear to 
be. If you could judge by all the laughter and giggling, by the 
splendor of the women's attire, by the neatness of the little house, 
prettily decorated with arabesque paintings, neat mats, and gay 



96 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

carpets ; they were a family well to do in the Beyrout world, and 
lived with as much comfort as any Europeans. They had one 
book ; and, on the wall of the principal apartment, a black picture 
of the Virgin, whose name is borne by pretty Mariam. 

The camels and the soldiers, the bazaars and khans, the foun- 
tains and awnings, which chequer, with such delightful variety 
of light and shade, the alleys and markets of an Oriental town, 
are to be seen in Beyrout in perfection ; and an artist might here 
employ himself for months with advantage and pleasure. A new 
costume was here added to the motley and picturesque assembly 
of dresses. This was the dress of the blue-veiled women from 
the Lebanon, stalking solemnly through the markets, with huge 
horns, near a yard high, on their foreheads. For thousands of 
years since the time the Hebrew prophets wrote, those horns have 
so been exalted in the Lebanon. 

At night Captain Lewis gave a splendid ball and supper to the 
" Trump." We had the " Trump's" band to perform the music; 
and a grand sight it was to see the captain himself enthusias- 
tically leading on the drum. Blue lights and rockets were burned 
from the yards of our ship ; which festive signals were answered 
presently from the " Trump," and from another English vessel 
in the harbor. 

They must have struck the Capitan Pasha with wonder, for he 
sent his secretary on board of us to inquire what the fireworks 
meant. And the worthy Turk had scarcely put his foot on the 
deck, when he found himself seized round the waist by one of the 
"Trump's" officers, and whirling round the deck in a waltz, to 
his own amazement, and the huge delight of the company. His 
face of wonder and gravity, as he went on twirling, could not 
have been exceeded by that of a dancing dervish at Scutari : and 
the manner in which he managed to erijamber the waltz excited 
universal applause. 

I forget whether he accommodated himself to European ways 
so much further as to drink champagne at supper time ; to say 
that he did would be telling tales out of school, and might inter- 
fere with the future advancement of that jolly dancing Turk. 

We made acquaintance with another of the sultan's subjects, 



JAFFA. 97 



who, I fear, will have occasion to doubt of the honor of the 
English nation, after the foul treachery with which he was 
treated. 

Among the occupiers of the little bazaar watch-boxes, venders 
of embroidered handkerchiefs and other articles of showy Eastern 
haberdashery, was a good-looking, neat young fellow, who spoke 
Ej:]glish very fluently, and was particularly attentive to all the 
passengers on board our ship. This' gentlerhan was not only a 
pocket-handkerchief merchant in the bazaar, but earned a further 
livelihood by letting out mules and donkeys; and he kept a 
small lodging-house, or inn, for travellers, as we were informed. 
No wonder he spoke good English, and was exceedingly polite 
and well bred ; for the worthy man had passed some time in 
England, and in the best society too. That humble haberdasher 
at Beyrout had been a lion here, at the very best houses of the 
great people, and had actually made his appearance at Windsor, 
where he was received as a Syrian Prince, and treated with great 
hospitality by royalty itself. 

I don't know what waggish propensity moved one of the officers 
of the " Trump " to say, that there was an equerry of his Royal 
Highness the Prince on board, and to point me out as the dignified 
personage in question. So the Syrian Prince was introduced to 
the royal equerry, and a great many compliments passed between 
us. I even had the audacity to state, tliat on my very last inter- 
view with my royal master, his Royal Highness had said, 
" Colonel Titmarsh, when you go to Beyrout, you will make 
special inquiries regarding my interesting friend Cogia Hassan." 
Poor Cogia Hassan (I forget whether that was his name, but it 
is as good as another) was overpowered with this royal message ; 
and we had an intimate conversation together, at which the wag- 
gish officer of the " Trump " assisted with the greatest glee. 

But see the consequences of deceit ! The next day, as we 
were getting under way, who should come on board but my 
friend the Syrian Prince, most eager for a last interview with the 
Windsor equerry ; and he begged me to carry his protestations 
of unalterable fidelity to the gracious consort of her Majesty. Nor 
was this all. Cogia Hassan actually produced a great box of 
sweetmeats, of which he begged my excellency to accept, a,nd a 
6 



98 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

little figure of a doll, dressed in the costume of Lebanon. Then 
the punishment of imposture began to be felt severely by me. 
How to accept the poor devil's sweetmeats ? How to refuse them ? 
And as we know that one fib leads to another, so I was obliged to 
support the first falsehood by another ; and putting on a dignified 
air — " Cogia Hassan," says I, " I am surprised you don't know 
the habits of the British court better, and are not aware that our 
gracious master solemnly forbids his servants to accept of any 
sort of backsheesh upon our travels." 

So Prince Cogia Hassan went over the side with his chest of 
sweetmeats, but insisted on leaving the doll, which may be worth 
twopence-halfpenny. 



LANDING AT JAFFA. 99 



XL 



A DAY AND NIGHT IN SYRIA. 

When, after being for five whole weeks at sea, with a general 
belief that at the end of a few days the marine malady leaves you 
for good, you find that a brisk wind and a heavy rolling swell 
create exactly the same inward effects which they occasioned at 
the very commencement of the voyage — you begin to fancy that 
you are unfairly dealt with : and I, for my part, had thought of 
complaining to the Company of this atrocious violation of the 
rules of their prospectus ; but we were perpetually coming to 
anchor in various ports, at which intervals of peace good humor 
was restored to us. 

On the 3d of October our cable rushed with a huge rattle into 
the blue sea before Jaffa, at a distance of considerably more than 
a mile of the town, which lay before us very clear, with the flags 
of the consuls flaring in the bright sky, and making a cheerful 
and hospitable show. The houses a great heap of sun-baked 
stones, surmounted here and there by minarets, and countless little 
whitewashed domes ; a few date trees spread out their fan-like 
heads over these dull-looking buildings ; long sands stretched 
away on either side, with low purple hills behind them ; we could 
see specks of camels crawling over these yellow plains ; and those 
persons who were about to land, had the leisure to behold the sea- 
spray flashing over the sands, and over a heap of black rocks 
which lie before the entry to the town. The swell is very great, 
the passage between the rocks narrow, and the danger sometimes 
considerable. So 'the guide began to entertain the ladies and 
other passengers in the huge country boat which brought us from 
the steamer, with an agreeable story of a lieutenant and eight sea- 
men of one of her Majesty's ships, who were upset, dashed to 
pieces, and drowned upon these rocks, through which two men 



100 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

and two boys, with a very moderate portion of clothing, each 
standing and pulling half an oar — there were but two oars be- 
tween them, and another by way of rudder — were endeavoring to 
guide us. 

When the danger of the rocks and surf was passed, came 
another danger of the hideous brutes in brown skins and the briefest 
shirts, who came towards the boat, straddling through the water 
with outstretched arms, grinning and yelling their Arab invita- 
tions to mount their shoulders. I think these fellows frightened 
the ladies still more than the rocks and the surf; but the poor 
creatures were oblisred to submit, and tremblino- were accom- 
modated somehow upon the mahogany backs of these ruffians, 
carried through the shallows, and flung up to a ledge before the 
city gate, where crowds more of dark people were swarming, 
howling after their fashion. The gentlemen, meanwhile, were 
having arguments about the eternal backsheesh with the roaring 
Arab boatmen ; and 1 recall with wonder and delight especially, 
the curses and screams of one small and extremely loud-lunged 
fellow, who expressed discontent at receiving a five, instead of a 
six piastre piece. But how is one to know, without possessing 
the language ? Both coins are made of a greasy pewtery sort of 
tin; and 1 thought the biggest was the most valuable: but the 
fellow showed a sense of their value, and a disposition seemingly 
to cut any man's throat who did not understand it. Men's throats 
have been cut for a less difference before now. 

Being cast upon the ledge, the first care of our gallantry was 
to look after the ladies, who were scared and astonished by the 
naked savage brutes, who were shouldering the poor things to and 
fro ; and bearing them through these and a dark archway, we 
came into a street crammed with donkeys and their packs and 
drivers, and towering camels with leering eyes looking into the 
second-floor rooms, and huge splay feet, through which mesdames 
et mesdemoiselles were to be conducted. We made a rush at the 
first open door, and passed comfortably under the heels of some 
horses gathered under the arched court, and up a stone staircase, 
which turned out to be that of the Russian consul's house. His 
people welcomed us most cordially to his abode, and the ladies 
and the luggage (objects of our solicitude) were led up many 



JAFFA. 101 



stairs and across several terraces to a most comfortable little 
room, under a dome of its own, where the representative of Rus- 
sia sat. Women with brown faces and draggle-tailed coats and 
turbans, and wondering eyes, and no stays, and blue beads and 
gold coins banging round their neci^s, came to gaze, as they 
passed, upon the fair neat English women ; blowsy black cooks 
puffing over fires, and the strangest pots and pans on the terraces; 
children paddling about in long striped robes, interrupted their 
sports or labors, to come and stare ; and the consul, in his cool 
domed chamber, with a lattice overlooking the sea, vi^ith clean 
mats, and pictures of the Emperor, the Virgin, and St. George, 
received the strangers with smiling courtesies, regaling these 
with pomegranates and sugar, those with pipes of tobacco, whereof 
the fragrant tubes were three yards long. 

The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under 
the comfortable, cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to 
see our own representative. The streets of the little town are 
neither, agreeable to horse or foot travellers. Many of the streets 
are mere flights of rough steps, leading abruptly into private 
houses ; you pass under archways and passages numberless ; a 
steep, dirty labyrinth of stone-vaulted stables and sheds occupies 
the ground-floor of the habitations ; and you pass from flat to flat 
of the terraces : at various irregular corners of which, little 
chambers, with little private domes, are erected, and the people 
live seemingly as much upon the terrace as in the room. 

We found the English consul in a queer little arched chamber, 
with a strange old picture of the king's arms to decorate one side 
of it ; and here the consul, a demure old man, dressed in red 
flowing robes, with a feeble janissary, bearing a shabby tin- 
mounted staff, or mace, to denote his office, received such of our 
nation as came to him for hospitality. He distributed pipes and 
^ cotfee to all and every one ; he made us a present of his house 
and all his beds for the night, and went himself to lie quietly on 
the terrace ; and for all this hospitality he declined to receive 
any reward from us, and said that he was but doing his duty in 
taking us in. This worthy man, I thought, must doubtless be 
very well paid by our government for making such sacrifices ; 
but it appears, that he does not get one single farthing, and that 



102 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

the greater number of our Levant consuls are paid at a similar 
rate of easy remuneration. If we have bad consular agents, have 
vi^e a right to complain ? If the worthy gentlemen cheat occa- 
sionally, can we reasonably be angry ? But in travelling through 
these countries, English people, who don't take into consideration 
the miserable poverty and scanty resources of their country, and 
are apt to brag and be proud of it, have their vanity hurt by see- 
ing the representatives of every nation but their own well and de- 
cently maintained, and feel ashamed at sitting down under the 
shabby protection of our mean consular flag. 

The active young men of our party had been on shore long 
before us, and seized upon all the available horses in the town : 
but we relied upon a letter from Halil Pacha, enjoining all go- 
vernors and pachas to help us in all ways : and hearing we were 
the bearers of this document, the Cadi and Vice-Governor of Jaffa 
came to wait upon the head of our party, declared that it was his 
delight and honor to set eyes upon us ; that he would do every- 
thing in the world to serve us ; that there were no hordes, un- 
luckily, but he would send and get some in three hours ; and so 
left us with a world of grinning bows and many choice compli- 
ments, from one side to the other, which came to each filtered 
through an obsequious interpreter. But hours passed, and the 
clatter of horses' hoofs was not heard. We had our dinner of 
eggs and flaps of bread, and the sunset gun fired : we had our 
pipes and coffee again, and the night fell. Is this man throwing 
dirt upon us ? we began to think. Is he laughing at our beards, 
and are our mothers' graves ill-treated by this smiling, swindling 
cadi ? We determined to go and seek in his own den this shuf- 
fling dispenser of infidel justice. This time we would be no more 
bamboozled by compliments ; but we would use the language of 
stern expostulation, and, being roused, would let the rascal hear 
the roar of the indignant British lion : so we rose up in our wrath. 
The poor consul got a lamp for us with a bit of wax candle, such 
as I wonder his rVieans could afford ; the shabby janissary marched 
ahead with his tin mace, the two lacquais de place, that two of 
our company had hired, stepped forward, each with an old sabre, 
and we went clattering and stumbling down the streets of the 
town, in order to seize upon this cadi in his own divan. I was 



THE CADI'S DIVAN. 103 



glad, for my part (though outwardly majestic and indignant in 
demeanor), that the horses had not come, and that we had a 
chance of seeing this little, queer glimpse of oriental life, which 
the magistrate's faithlessness procured for us. 

As piety forbids the Turks to eat during the weary daylight 
hours of the Ramazan, they spend their time profitably in sleep- 
ing until the welcome sunset, when the town wakens : all the 
lanterns are lighted up ; all the pipes begin to puff, and the nar- 
ghiles to bubble ; all the sour-milk-and-sherbet-men begin to yell 
out the excellence of their wares ; all the frying-pans in the lit- 
tle, dirty cook-shops begin to friz, and the pots to send forth a 
steam : and t|irough this dingy, ragged, bustling, beggarly, cheer- 
ful scene, we began now to march towards the Bow Street of 
Jaffa. We bustled through a crowded narrow archway which 
led to the cadi's police-office, entered the little room, atrociously 
perfumed with musk, and passing by the rail-board, where the 
common sort stood, mounted up the stage on which his worship 
and friends sat, and squatted down on the divans in stern and 
silent dignity. His honor offered us coffee, his countenance evi- 
dently showing considerable alarm. A black slave, whose duty 
seemed to be to prepare this beverage in a side-room with a fur- 
nace, prepared for each of us about a tea-spoonful of the liquor : 
his worship's clerk, I presume, a tall Turk of a noble aspect, 
presented it to us, and having lapped up the little modicum of 
drink, the British lion began to speak. 

All the other travellers (said the lion with perfect reason) have 
good horses and are gone ; the Russians have got horses, the 
Spaniards have horses, the English have horses, but we, we vizirs 
in our country, and coming with letters of Halil Pacha, are 
laughed at, spit upon ! Are Halil Pacha's letters dirt, that you 
attend to them in this way ? Are British lions dogs that you 
treat them so ? — and so on. This speech with many variations 
was made on our side for a quarter of an hour ; and we finally 
swore, that unless the horses were forthcoming, we would write 
to Halil Pacha the next morning, and to his Excellency the Eng- 
lish minister at the Sublime Porte. Then you should have heard 
the chorus of Turks in reply : a dozen voices rose up from the 
divan, shouting, screaming, ejaculating, expectorating (the Ara- 



104 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



bic spoken language seems to require a great employment of the 
two latter oratorical methods), and uttering what the meek inter- 
preter did not translate to us, but what I dare say were by no 
means complimentary phrases towards us and our nation. Fi- 
nally, the palaver concluded by the Cadi declaring, that by the 
will of heaven horses should be forthcoming at three o'clock in 
the morniuCT ; and that if not, whv then we micht write to Halil 
Pacha. 

This posed us, and we rose up and haughtily took leave. I 
should like to know that fellow's real opinion of us lions very 
much : and especially to have had the translation of the speeches 
of a huge-breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and 
spoke as if he would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which 
w^as hoarsely murmuring under our windows an accompaniment 
to the concert within. 

We then marched through the bazaars, that were lofty and 
grim, and pretty full of people. In a desolate broken building, 
some hundreds of children were playing and singing ; in many 
corners sat parties over their water-pipes, one of whom every now 
and then would begin twanging out a most queer chant ; others 
there were playing at casino — a crowd squatted round the squall- 
ing gamblers, and talking and looking on with eager interest. In 
one place of the bazaar we found a hundred people at least lis- 
tening to a story-teller, who delivered his tale with excellent ac- 
tion, voice and volubility ; in another they were playing a sort of 
thimble-rig with coffee-cups all intent upon the game, and the 
player himself very wild lest one of our party, who had disco^ 
vered where the pea lay, should tell the company. The devo- 
tion and energy with which all these pastimes were pursued, 
struck me as much as anything. These people have been play- 
ing thimble-rig and casino ; that story-teller has been shouting 
his tale of Antar, for forty years ; and they are just as happy 
with this amusement now as when first they tried it. Is there 
no ennui in the Eastern countries, and are the blue devils not 
allowed to go about there ? 

From the bazaars we went to see the house of Mustapha, said 
to be the best house and the greatest man of Jaffa. But the great 
man had absconded suddenly, and had fled into Egypt. The sul- 



A NIGHT SCENE AT JAFFA. 105 

tan had made a demand upon him for sixteen thousand purses, 
£80,000 — Mustapha retired — the sultan pounced down upon his 
house, and his goods, his horses, and his mules. His harem was 
desolate. Mr. Milnes could have written six affecting poems, 
had he been with us, on the dark loneliness of that violated sanc- 
tuary. We passed from hall to hall, terrace to terrace — a few 
fellows were slumbering on the naked floors, and scarce turned 
as we went by them. We entered Mustapha's particular divan 
— there was the raised floor, but no bearded friends squatting 
away the night of Ramazan ; there was the little coffee furnace, 
but where was the slave and the coflee and the glowing embers 
of the pipes ? Mustapha's favorite passages from the Koran were 
still painted up on the walls, but nobody was the wiser for them.' 
We walked over a sleeping negro, and opened the windows which 
looked into his gardens. The horses and donkeys, the camels and 
mules were picketed there below, but where is the said Mustapha ? 
From the frying-pan of the Porte, has he not fallen into the fire 
of Mehemet Ali ? And which is best, to broil or to fry ? If it 
be but to read the Arabian Nights again on getting home, it is 
good to have made this little voyage and seen these strange places 
and faces. 

Then we went out through the arched lowering gateway of the 
town into the plain beyond, and that was another famous and bril- 
liant scene of the Arabian Nights. The heaven shone with a 
marvellous brilliancy — the plain disappeared far in the haze — the 
towers and battlements of the town rose black against the sky — 
old outlandish trees rose up here and there — clumps of camels 
were couched in the rare herbage — dogs were baying about — 
groups of men lay sleeping under their haicks round about — 
round about the tall gates many lights were twinkling — and they 
brought us water-pipes and sherbet — and we wondered to think 
that London was only three weeks off. 

Then came the night at the consul's. The poor demure old 
gentleman brought out his mattresses ; and the ladies sleeping 
round on the divans, we lay down quite happy ; and I for my 
part intended to make as delightful dreams as Alnaschar ; but — 
lo, the delicate musquito sounded his horn : the active flea jumped 
up, and came to feast on Christian flesh (the eastern flea bites 
6* 



106 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

more bitterly than the most savage bug in Christendom), and the 
bug — oh, the accursed ! Why was he made ? What duty has 
that infamous ruffian to perform in the world, save to make peo- 
ple wretched ? Only Bulwer in his most pathetic style could de- 
scribe the miseries of that night — the moaning, the groaning, the 
cursing, the tumbling, the blistering, the infamous despair and 
degradation ! I heard all the cocks in Jaffa crow ; the children 
crying, and the mothers hushing them ; the donkeys braying fit- 
fully in the moonlight ; at last, I heard the clatter of hoofs below, 
and the hailing of men. It was three o'clock, the horses were 
actually come ; nay, there were camels likewise ; asses and 
mules, pack-saddles and drivers, all bustling together under the 
moonlight in the cheerful street — and the first night in Syria 
was over. 



A CAVALCADE. 107 



XII. 

• FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM. 

It took an hour or more to get our little caravan into marching 
order, to accommodate all the packs to the horses, the horses to 
the riders ; to see the ladies comfortably placed in their litter, 
with a sleek and large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each 
mule, and a tall and exceedingly good-natured and mahogany- 
colored infidel to walk by the side of the carriage, to balance it 
as it swayed to and fro, and to offer his back as a step to the in- 
mates whenever they were minded to ascend or alight. These 
three fellows, fasting through the Ramazan, and over as rough a 
road, for the greater part, as ever shook mortal bones, performed 
their fourteen hours' walk of near forty miles with the most ad- 
mirable courage, alacrity, and good humor. They once or twice 
drank water on the march, and so far infringed the rule ; but 
they refused all bread or edible refreshment offered to them, and 
tugged on with an energy that the best camel, and I am sure the 
best Christian, might envy. What a lesson of good-humored en- 
durance it was to certain Pall Mall Sardanapaluses, who grumble 
if club sofa cushions are not soft enough ! 

If I could write sonnets at leisure, I would like to chronicle in 
fourteen lines my sensations on finding myself on a high Turkish 
saddle, with a pair of fire-shovel stirrups and worsted reins, red 
padded saddle cloth, and innumerable tags, fringes, glass beads, 
ends of rope, to decorate the harness of the horse, the gallant steed 
on which I was about to gallop into Syrian life. What a figure 
we cut in the moonlight, and how they would have stared in the 
Strand ! Aye, or in Leicestershire, where I warrant such a horse 
and rider are not often visible ! The shovel stirrups are deucedly 
short; the clumsy leathers cut the shins of some equestrians 
abominably ; you sit over your horse as it were on a tower, from 



108 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

which the descent would be very easy, but for the big peak of the 
saddle. A good way for the inexperienced is to put a stick or 
umbrella across the saddle peak again, so that it is next to impos- 
sible to go over your horse's neck. I found this a vast comfort 
in going down the hills, and I'ecommend it conscientiously to other 
dear simple brethren of the city. 

Peaceful men, we did not ornament our girdles with pistols, 
yataghans, &c., such as some pilgrims appeared to bristle all over 
with ; and as a lesson to such rash people, a story may be told 
which was narrated to us at Jerusalem, and carries a wholesome 
moral. The honorable Hoggin Armer, who was lately travelling 
in the East, wore about his stomach two brace of pistols, of such 
exquisite finish and make, that a Sheikh, in the Jericho country, 
robbed him merely for the sake of the pistols. I don't know 
whether he has told the story to his friends at home. 

Another story about Sheikhs may here be told apropos. That 
celebrated Irish Peer, Lord Oldgent (who was distinguished in 
the Buckinghamshire Dragoons), having paid a sort of black 
mail to the Sheikh of Jericho country, was suddenly set upon by 
another Sheikh, who claimed to be the real Jerichonian governor ; 
and these twins quarrelled over the body of Lord Oldgent, as the 
widows for the innocent baby before Solomon. There was enough 
for both — but these digressions are interminable. 

The party got under weigh at near four o'clock : the ladies in 
the litter, the F I'enchf emme de cliamlre manfully caracoling on a 
grey horse ; the cavaliers, like your humble servant, on their 
high saddles ; the domestics, flunkies, guides, and grooms, on all 
sorts of animals, — some fourteen in all. Add to these, two most 
grave and stately Arabs in white beards, white turbans, white 
haicks and raiments ; sabres curling round their military thighs, 
and immense long guns at their backs. More venerable warriors 
I never saw ; they went by the side of the litter soberly prancing. 
When we emerged from the steep clattering streets of the city 
into the grey plains, lighted by the moon and starlight, these 
militaries rode onward, leading the way through the huge avenues 
of strange diabolical looking prickly pears (plants that look as if 
they had grown in Tartarus), by which the first mile or two of 
route from the city is bounded ; and as the dawn arose before us, 



A TOURNAMENT. 109 



exhibiting first a streak of grey, then of green, then of red in the 
sky, it was fine to see these martial figures defined against the 
rising light. The sight of that little cavalcade and of the nature 
around it, will always remain with me, I think, as one of the 
freshest and most delightful sensations I have enjoyed since the 
day I first saw Calais pier. It was full day when they gave 
their horses a diunk at a large pretty oriental fountain, and then 
presently we entered the open plain — the famous plain of Sharon 
—so fruitful in roses once, now hardly cultivated, but always 
beautiful and noble. 

Here presently, in the distance, we saw another cavalcade 
pricking over the plain. Our two white warriors spread to the 
right and left, and galloped to reconnoitre. We, too, put our 
steeds to the canter, and handling our umbrellas as Richard did 
his lance against Saladin, went undaunted to challenge this cara- 
van. The fact is, we could distinguish that it was formed of the 
party of our pious friends the Poles, and we hailed them with 
cheerful shouting, and presently the two caravans joined compa- 
ny, and scoured the plain at the rate of near four miles per hour. 
The horse-master, a courier of this company, rode three miles 
for our one. He was a broken-nosed Arab, with pistols, a sabre, 
a fusee, a yellow Damascus cloth flapping over his head, and his 
nose ornamented with diachylon. He rode a hog-necked grey 
Arab, bristling over with harness, and juniped, and whirled, and 
reared, and halted, to the admiration of all. 

Scarce had the diachylonian Arab finished his evolutions, 
when, lo ! yet another cloud of dust was seen, and another party 
of armed and glittering horsemen appeared. They, too, were led 
by an Arab, who was followed by two Janissaries, with silver 
maces shining in the sun. 'Twas the party of the nfew American 
Consul- General of Syria and Jerusalem, hastening to that city, 
with the inferior consuls of Ramleh and Jaffa to escort him. He 
expects to see the millennium in three years, and has accepted 
the office of consul at Jerusalem, so as to be on the spot in readi- 
ness. 

When the diachylon Arab saw the American Arab, he straight- 
way galloped his steed towards him, took his pipe, which he de- 
livered at his adversary in guise of a jereed, and galloped round 



110 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

and round, and in and out, and there and back again, as in a play 
of war. The American replied in a similar playful ferocity — 
the two warriors made a little tournament for us there on the 
plains before Jaffa, in which diachylon, being a little worsted, 
challenged his adversary to a race, and fled away on his grey, 
the American following on his bay. Here poor sticking-plaister 
was again worsted, the Yankee contemptuously riding round him, 
and then declining further exercise. 

What more could mortal man want ? A troop of knights and 
paladins could have done no more. In no page of Walter Scott 
have I read a scene more fair and sparkling. The sober warriors 
of our escort did not join in the gambols of the young men. 
There they rode soberly, in their white turbans, by their ladies' 
litter, their long guns rising up behind them. 

There was no lack of company along the road : donkeys num- 
berless, camels by twos and threes ; now a mule driver, trudging 
along the road, chanting a most queer melody : now a lady, in 
white veil, black mask, and yellow papooshes, bestriding her ass, 
and followed by her husband, — met us on the way ; and most 
people gave a salutation. Presently we saw Ramleh, in a smok- 
ing mist, on the plain before us, flanked to the right by a tall 
lonely tower, that might have held the bells of some moustier of 
Caen or Evreux. As we entered, about three hours and a half 
after starting, among the white domes and stone houses of the 
little town, we passed the place of tombs. Two women were 
sitting on one of them, — the one bending her head towards the 
stone, and rocking to and fro, and moaning out a very sweet, piti- 
ful lamentation. The American Consul invited us to breakfast at 
the house of his subaltern, the hospitable one-eyed Armenian, 
who represents the United States at Jaffa. The stars and stripes 
were flaunting over his terraces, to which we ascended, leaving 
our horses to the care of a multitude of roaring, ragged Arabs 
beneath, who took charge of and fed the animals, though I can't 
say in the least why ; but in the same way as getting off piy 
horse on entering Jerusalem, I gave the rein into the hand of the 
first person near me, and have never heard of the worthy brute 
since. At the American Consul's we were served first with rice 
soup in pishpash, flavored with cinnamon and spice ; then with 



FACE OF THE COUNTRY. Ill 

boiled mutton, then with stewed ditto and tomatoes ; then with 
fowls swimming in grease ; then with brown ragouts belabored 
with onions ; then with a smoking pilaff of rice : several of 
which dishes I can pronounce to be of excellent material and 
flavor. When the gentry had concluded this repast it was handed 
to a side table, where the commonalty speedily discussed it. We 
left them licking their fingers as we hastened away upon the 
second part of the ride. 

As we quitted Ramleh, the scenery lost that sweet and peace- 
ful look which characterizes the pretty plain we^ had traversed ; 
and the sun, too, rising in the heaven, dissipated all those fresh, 
beautiful tints in which God's world is clothed of early morning, 
and which city people have so seldom the chance of beholding. 
The plain over which we rode looked yellow and gloomy ; the 
cultivation little or none ; the land across the roadside fringed, 
for the most part, with straggling wild carrot plants ; a patch of 
green only here and there. We passed several herds of lean, 
small, well-conditioned cattle ; many flocks of black goats, tended 
now and then by a ragged negro-shepherd, his long gun slung 
over his back, his hand over his eyes to shade them as he stared 
at our little cavalcade. Most of the half-naked country folks we 
met, had this dismal appendage to eastern rustic life ; and the 
weapon could hardly be one of mere defence, for, beyond the faded 
skull cap, or tattered coat of blue or dirty white, the brawny, 
brown-chested, solemn-looking fellows had nothing seemingly to 
guard. As before, there was no lack of travellers on the road : 
more donkeys trotting by, looking sleek and strong ; camels 
singly and by pairs, laden with a little humble ragged merchan- 
dise, on their way between the two towns. About noon we halt- 
ed eagerly at a short distance from an Arab village and well, 
where all were glad of a drink of fresh water. A village of 
beavers, or a colony of ants, make habitations not unlike these 
dismal huts piled together on the plain here. There were no 
single huts along the whole line of road ; poor and wretched as 
they are, the Fellahs huddle all together for protection from the 
other thieves, their neighbors. The government (which we re- 
stored to them) has no power to protect them, and is only strong 
enough to rob them. The women, with their long blue gowns 



112 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

and ragged veils, came to and fro with pitchers on their heads. 
Rebecca had such a one when she brought drink to the lieutenant 
of Abraham. The boys came staring round, bawling after us 
with their fathers for the inevitable backsheesh. The village 
dogs barked round the flocks, as tkey were driven to water or 
pasture. 

We saw a gloomy, not very lofty-looking ridge of hills in front 
of us ; the highest of which the guide pointing out to us, told us 
that from it we should see Jerusalem. It looked very near, and 
we all set up a trot of enthusiasm to get into this hill country. 

But that burst of enthusiasm (it may have carried us nearly a 
quarter of a mile in three minutes) was soon destined to be checked 
by the disagreeable nature of the country we had to traverse. 
Before we got to the real mountain district, we were in a manner 
prepared for it, by the mounting and descent of several lonely 
outlying hills, up and down which our rough stony track wound. 
Then we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the 
clattering bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters have 
rolled away into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race 
who once inhabited these savage hills. There may have been 
cultivation here two thousand years ago. The mountains, or 
huge stony mounds environing this rough path, have level ridges 
all the way up to their summits ; on these parallel ledges there is 
still some verdure and soil : when water flowed here and the 
country was thronged with that extraordinary population, which, 
according to the Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, 
these mountain steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such 
as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. Now the 
district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so 
many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among 
the stony brakes ; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole 
course of the ride. The sparrows are all at Jerusalem, among 
the house tops, where their ceaseless chirping and twittering forms 
the most cheerful sound of the place. 

The company of Poles, the company of Oxfordmen, and the 
little American army, travelled too quick for our caravan, which 
was made to follow the slow progress of the ladies' litter, and we 
had to make the journey through the mountains in a very small 



RENCONTRES 113 



number. Not one of our party had a single weapon nnore dread- 
ful than an umbrella ; and a couple of Arabs, wickedly inclined, 
might have brought us all to the halt, and rifled every carpet bag 
and pocket belonging to us. Nor can I say that we journeyed 
without certain qualms of fear. When swarthy fellows, with 
girdles full of pistols and yataghans, passed us without unslinging 
their long guns ; when scowling camel-riders, with awful long 
bending lances, decorated with tufts of rags, or savage plumes of 
scarlet feathers, went by \yithout molestation, I think we were 
rather glad that they did not stop and parley : for after all, a 
British lion with an umbrella is no match for an Arab with his 
infernal long gun. What, too, would have become of our women ? 
So we tried to think that it was entirely out of anxiety for them 
that we were inclined to push on. 

There is a shady resting-place and village in the midst of the 
mountain district where the travellers aire accustomed to halt for 
an hour's repose and refreshment ; and the other caravans were 
just quitting this spot, having enjoyed its cool shades and waters 
when we came up. Should we stop ? Regard for the ladies (of 
course no other earthly consideration) made us say, No ! What 
admirable self-denial and chivalrous devotion ! So our poor 
devils of mules and horses got no rest and no water, our panting 
litter-men no breathing time, and we staggered desperately after 
the procession ahead of us. It wound up the mountain in front 
of us: the Poles with their guns and attendants, the American 
with his janissaries ; fifty or sixty all riding slowly like the pro- 
cession in Blue Beard. 

But alas, they headed us very soon ; when we got up the weary 
hill they were all out of sight; perhaps thoughts of Fleet-street 
did cross the minds of some of us then, and a vague desire to see 
a few policemen. The district now seemed peopled, and with an 
ugly race. Savage personages peered at us out of huts, and grim 
holes in the rocks. The mules began to loiter most abominably 
— water the muleteers must have — and, behold, we came to a 
pleasant looking village of trees standing on a hill ; children were 
shaking figs from the trees — women were going about — before us 
was the mosque of a holy man — the village, looking like a collec- 
tion of little forts, rose up on the hill to our right, with a long 



114 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

view of the fields and gardens stretching from it, and camels 
arriving with their burthens. Here we must stop ; Paolo, the 
chief servant, knew the Sheikh of the village — he very good 
man — give him water and supper — water very good here — in 
fact we began to think of the propriety of halting here for the 
night, and making our entry into Jerusalem on the next day. 

A man on a handsome horse dressed in red came prancing up 
to us, looked hard at the ladies in the litter, and passed away. 
Then two others sauntered up, one hapdsome, and dressed in red 
too, and he stared into the litter without ceremony, began to play 
with a little dog that lay there, asked if we were Inglees, and was 
answered by me in the affirmative. Paolo had brought the water, 
the most delicious draught in the world. The gentlefolks had had 
some, the poor muleteers were longing for it. The French maid, 
the courageous Victoire (never since the days of Joan of Arc has 
there surely been a more gallant and virtuous female of France) 
refused the drink ; when suddenly a servant of the party scam- 
pers up to his master and says : " Abou Gosh says the ladies 
must get out and show themselves to the women of the village." 

It was Abou Gosh himself, the redoubted robber Sheikh about 
whom we had been laughing and crying " Wolf" all day. Never 
was seen such a skurry — " March !" Vv'as the instant order given. 
When Victoire heard who it was and the message, you should 
have seen how she changed countenance ; trembling for her 
virtue in the ferocious clutches of a Gosh : " Un verre d'eau pour 
I'amour de Dieu !" gasped she, and was ready to faint on her 
saddle. " Ne buvez plus, Victoire !" screamed a little fellow of 
our party. " Push on, push on !" cried one and all. " What's 
the matter !" exclaimed the ladies in the litter, as they saw them- 
selves suddenly jogging on again. But we took care not to tell 
them what had been the designs of the redoubtable Abou Gosh. 
Away then we went — Victoire was saved — and her mistresses 
rescued from dangers they knew not of, until they were a long 
way out of the village. 

Did he intend insult or good-will ? Did Victoire escape the 
odious chance of becoming iVIadame Abou Gosh ? Or did the 
mountain chief simply propose to be hospitable after his fashion ? 
I think the latter was his desire ; if the former had been his wish, 



NIGHT BEFORE JERUSALEM. 115 

a half dozen of his long guns could have been up with as in a 
minute, and had all our party at their mercy. But now, for the 
sake of the mere excitement, the incident was, I am sorry to say, 
rather a pleasant one than otherwise ; especially for a traveller, 
who is in the happy condition of being able to sing before robbers, 
as is the case with the writer of the present. 

A little way out of the land of Goshen we came upon a long 
stretch of gardens and vineyards, slanting towards the setting sun, 
which illuminated numberless golden clusters of the most deli- 
cious grapes, of which we stopped and partook. Such grapes 
were never before tasted ; water so fresh as that which a country- 
man fetched for us from a well, never sluiced parched throats 
before. It was the ride, the sun, and above all Abou Gosh, who 
made that refreshment so sweet : and hereby I offer him my best 
thanks. Presently in the midst of a most diabolical ravine, down 
which our horses went sliding, we heard the evening gun : it was 
fired from Jerusalem. The twilight is brief in this country, and 
in a few minutes the landscape was grey round about us, and the 
sky lighted up by a hundred thousand stars, which made the night 
beautiful. 

Under this supero canopy we rode for a couple of hours to our 
journey's end. The mountains round about us dark, lonely, and 
sad ; the landscape as we saw it at night (it is not more cheerful 
in the day time), the most solemn and forlorn 1 have ever seen. 
The feelings of almost terror, with which riding through the night 
we approached this awful place, the centre of the world's past 
and future history, have no need to be noted down here. The 
recollection of thos% sensations must remain with a man as long 
as his memory lasts ; and he should think of them as often, per- 
haps, as he should talk of them little. 



116 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



XIII. 



JERUSALEM. 



The ladies of our party found excellent quarters in readiness for 
them at the Greek convent in the city ; where airy rooms, and 
plentiful meals, and wines and sweetmeats delicate and abundant, 
were provided to cheer them after the fatigues of their journey. 
I don't know whether the worthy fathers of the convent share in 
the good things which they lavish on their guests ; but they look 
as if they do. Those whom we saw bore every sign of easy con- 
science and good living ; there were a pair of strong, rosy, greasy, 
lazy lay-brothers, dawdling in the sun on the convent terrace, or 
peering over the parapet into the street below, whose looks gave 
one a notion of anything but asceticism. 

In the principal room of the strangers' house (the lay traveller 
is not admitted to dwell in the sacred interior of the convent), and- 
over the building, the Russian double-headed eagle is displayed. 
The place is under the patronage of the Emperor Nicholas : an 
imperial Prince has stayed in these rooms : the Russian Consul 
performs a great part in the city ; and a considerable annual 
stipend is given by the Emperor towards the maintenance of the 
great establishment in Jerusalem. The Great Chapel of the 
Church. of the Holy Sepulchre is by far th^ richest, in point of 
furniture, of all the places of worship under that roof. We were 
in Russia, when we came to visit our friends here ; under the 
protection of the Father of the Church and the Imperial Eagle ! 
This butcher and tyrant, who sits on his throne only through the 
crime of those who held it before him — every step in whose pedi- 
gree is stained by some horrible mark of murder, parricide, 
adultery — this padded and whiskered pontiff — who rules in his 
jack-boots over a system of spies and soldiers, of deceit, ignorance, 
dissoluteness, and brute force, such as surely the history of the 



A PILLAR OF THE CHURCH. 117 

world never told of before — has a tender interest in the welfare 
of his spiritual children : in the Eastern Church ranks after the 
divinity, and is worshipped by millions of men. A pious exemplar 
oSChristianity, truly ! and of the condition to which its union with 
politics has brought it ! Think of the rank to which he pretends, 
and gravely believes that he possesses, no doubt ! — think of those 
who assumed the same ultra-sacred character before him ! — and 
then of the Bible and the Founder of the Religion, of which the 
Emperor assumes to be the chief priest and defender ! 

We had some Poles of our party ; but these poor fellows went 
to the Latin convent, declining to worship after the Emperor's 
fashion. The next night after our arrival, two of them passed in 
the Sepulchre. There we saw them, more than' once on subse- 
quent visits, kneeling in the Latin Church before the pictures, or 
marching solemnly with candles in processions, or lying flat on 
the stones, or passionately kissing the spots which their traditions 
have consecrated as the authentic places of the Saviour's suffer- 
ings. More honest or more civilized, or from opposition, the 
Latin fathers have long given up and disowned the disgusting 
mummery of the Eastern Fire, — which lie the Greeks continue 
annually to tell. 

Their travellers' house and convent, though large and com- 
modious, are of a much poorer and shabbier condition than those 
of the Greeks. Both make believe not to take money ; but the 
traveller is expected to pay in each. The Latin fathers enlarge 
their means by a little harmless trade in beads and crosses, and 
mother-of-pearl shells, on which figures of saints are engraved ; 
and which they purchase from the manufacturers, and vend at a 
small profit. The English, until of late, used to be quartered in 
these sham inns ; but last year two or three Maltese took houses 
for the reception of tourists, who can now be accommodated with 
cleanly and comfortable board, at a rate not too heavy for most 
pockets. 

To one of these we went very gladly ; giving our horses the 
bridle at the door, which went off of their own will to their stables, 
through the dark, inextricable labyrinths of streets, archways, and 
alleys, which we had threaded after leaving the main street from 
the Jaffa gate. There, there was still some life. Numbers of 



118 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

persons were collected at their doors, or smoking before the dingy- 
coffee-houses, where singing and story-telling were going on ; but 
out of this great street* everything was silent, and no sign of a 
light from the windows of the low houses which we passed. • 

We ascended from a lower floor up to a terrace, on which 
were several little domed chambers, or pavilions. From this ter- 
race, whence we looked in the morning, a great part of the city 
spread before us : — v/hite domes upon domes, and terraces of the 
same character as our own. Here and there, from among these 
whitewashed mounds round about, a minaret rose, or a rare date 
tree ; but the chief part of the vegetation near was that odious 
tree the prickly pear, — one huge green wart growing out of 
another, armed with spikes, as inhospitable as the aloe, without 
shelter or beauty. To the right the Mosque of Omar rose ; the 
rising sun behind it. Yonder steep tortuous lane before us, 
flanked by ruined walls on either side, has borne, time out of 
mind, the title of Via Dolorosa ; and tradition bas fixed the spots 
where the Saviour rested, bearing his cross to Calvary. But of the 
mountain, rising immediately in front of us, a few grey olive 
trees speckling the yellow side here and there, there can be no 
question. That is the Mount of Olives. Bethany lies beyond it. 
The most sacred eyes that ever looked on this world, have gazed 
on those ridges : it was there he used to walk and teach. With 
shame and humility one looks towards the spot where that inex- 
pressible Love and Benevolence lived and breathed ; where the 
great yearning heart of the Saviour interceded for all our race ; 
and whence the bigots and traitors of his day led him away to 
kill him ! 

That company of Jews whom we had brought with us from 
Constantinople, and who had cursed every delay on the route, not 
from impatience to view the Holy City, but from rage at being 
obliged to purchase dear provisions for their maintenance on ship- 
board, made what bargains they best could at Jaffa, and journeyed 
to the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the cheapest rate. We saw the 
tail form of the old Polish Patriarch, venerable in filth, stalking 
among the stinking ruins of the Jewish quarter. The sly old 



JEWISH PILGRIMS. 119 



Rabbi, in the greasy folding hat, who would not pay to shelter 
his children from the storm ofTBeyrout, greeted us in the Bazaars ; 
the younger Rabbis were furbished up with some smartness. We 
met them on Sunday at the kind of promenade, by the walls of 
the Bethlehem gate ; they were in company of some red-bearded 
co-religionists, smartly attired in eastern raiment ; but their voice 
was the voice of the Jews of Berlin, and of course as we passed 
they were talking about so many hundfert thaler. You may track 
one of the people, and be sure to hear mention of that silver calf 
that they worship. 

The English mission has been very unsuccessful with these 
religionists. I don't believe the Episcopal apparatus — the Chap- 
lains, and the Colleges, and the Beadles — have succeeded in con- 
verting a dozen of them ; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for 
the luckless Hebrew in Jerusalem who shall secede from his faith. 
Their old community spurn them with horror ; and I heard of the 
case of one unfortunate man, whose wife, in spite of her husband's 
change of creed, being resolved, like a true woman, to cleave to 
him, was spirited away from him in his absence ; was kept in 
privacy in the city, in spite of all exertions of the mission, of the 
Consul and the Bishop, and the Chaplains and the Beadles ; was 
passed away from Jerusalem to Beyrout, and thence to Constanti- 
nople ; and from Constantinople was whisked off into the Russian 
territories, where she still pines after her husband. May that un- 
happy convert find consolation away from her ! I could not help 
thinking as my informant, an excellent and accomplished gentle- 
man of the mission, told me the story, that the Jews had done only 
what the Christians do under the same circumstances. The 
woman was the daughter of a most learned Rabbi, as I gathered. 
Suppose a daughter of the Rabbi of Exeter, or Canterbury, were 
to marry a man who turned Jew, would not her Right Reverend 
Father be justified in taking her out of the power of a person 
likely to hurl her soul to perditica ? Those poor converts should 
surely be sent away to England out of the way of persecution. 
We could not but feel a pity for them, as they sat there on their 
benches in the church conspicuous ; and thought of the scorn and 
contumely which attended them without, as they passed in their 



120 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



European dresses and shaven beards, among their grisly, scowl- 
ing, long-robed countrymen. 

As elsewhere in the towns I have seen, the Ghetto of Jerusa- 
lem is pre-eminent in filth. The people are gathered round about 
the dung-gate of the city. Of a Friday you may hear their wail- 
ings and lamentations for the lost glories of their city. I think 
the Valley of Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen 
in the world. From all quarters , they come hither to bury their 
dead. When his time is come, yonder hoary old miser, with 
whom we made our voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To 
do that, and to claw together money, has been the purpose of that 
strange, long life. 

We brought with us one of the gentlemen of the mission, a 
Hebrew convert, the Rev. Mr. E — ; and lest I should be sup- 
posed to speak with disrespect above, of any of the converts of the 
Hebrew faith, let me mention this gentleman as the only one whom 
I had the fortune to meet on terms of intimacy. I never saw a 
man whose outward conduct was more touching, whose sincerity 
was more evident, and whose religious feeling seemed more deep, 
real, and reasonable. 

Only a few feet of the walls of the Anglican Church of Jeru- 
salem rise up from their foundations, on a picturesque open spot, 
in front of the Bethlehem Gate. The English Bishop has his 
church hard by : and near it is the house where the Christians of 
our denomination assemble and worship. 

There seem to be polyglot services here. I saw books of 
prayer, or Scripture, in Hebrew, Greek, and German : in which 
latter language Dr. Alexander preaches every Sunday. A gen- 
tleman, who sat near me at church, used all these books indiffer- 
entl}" ; reading the first lesson from the Hebrew book, and the 
second from the Greek. Here we all assembled on the Sunday 
after our arrival : it was affecting to hear the music and language 
of our country sounding in this distant place ; to have the decent 
and manly ceremonial of our service ; the prayers delivered in 
that noble language. Even that stout anti-prelatist, the American 
Consul, who has left his house and fortune in America in order 
to witness the coming of the Millenium, who believes it to be so 



ENGLISH SERVICE. 121 

near that he has brought a dove with him from his native land 
(which bird he solemnly informed us was to survive the expected 
Advent), was affected by the good old words and service. He 
swayed about and moaned in his place at various passages ; during 
the sermon he gave especial marks of sympathy and approbation. 
I never heard the service more excellently and impressively read 
than by the Bishop's Chaplain, Mr. Veitch. But it was the music 
that was most touching I thought, — the sweet old songs of home. 

There was a considerable company assembled : near a hun- 
dred people I should think. Our party made a large addition to 
the usual congregation. The Bishop's family is proverbially 
numerous : the Consul and the gentlemen of the mission have 
wives, and children, and English establishments. These, and 
the strangers, occupied places down the room, to the right 
and left of the desk and communion table. The converts, and 
the members of the college, in rather a scanty number, faced the 
officiating clergyman ; before whom the silver maces of the 
Janissaries were set up, as they set up the Beadles' maces in 
England. 

I made many walks round the city to Olivet and Bethany, to 
the tombs of the kings, and the fountains sacred in story. These 
are green and fresh, but all the rest of the landscape seemed to 
me to be frighiful. Parched mountains with a grey bleak olive 
tree trembling here and there ; savage ravines and valleys, paved 
with tombstones — a landscape unspeakably ghastly and desolate, 
meet the eye wherever you wander round about the city. The 
place seems quite adapted to the events which are recorded in the 
Hebrew histories. It and they, as it seems to me, can never be re- 
garded without terror. Fear and blood, crime and punishment, fol- 
low from page to page in frightful succession. There is not a spot 
at which you look, but some violent deed has been done there : 
some massacre has been committed, some victim has been mur- 
dered, some idol has been worshipped with bloody and dreadful 
rites. Not far from hence is the place where the Jewish conqueror 
fought for the possession of Jerusalem. " The sun stood still, and 
hasted not to go down about a whole day ;" so that the Jews might 
have day-light to destroy the Amorites, whose iniquities were full, 
and whose land they were about to occupy. The fugitive heathen 
7 



122 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

king, and his allies, were discovered in their hiding-place, and 
hanged : " and the children of Judah smote Jerusalem with the 
edge of the sword, and set the city on fire ; and they left none 
remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed." 

I went out at the Zion gate, and looked at the so-called tomb 
of David. I had been reading all the morning in the Psalms, 
and his history in Samuel and Kings. " Bring thou down ShimeVs 
hoar head to the grave vjiih ilood/^ are the last words of the dying 
monarch as recorded by the history. What they call the tomb, 
is now in a crumbling old mosque ; from which Jew and Chris- 
tian are excluded alike. As i saw it, blazing in the sunshine, 
with the purple sky behind it, the glare only served to mark the 
surrounding desolation more clearly. The lonely walls and 
towers of the city rose hard by. Dreary mountains, and declivi- 
ties of naked stones, were round about : they are burrowed with 
holes in which Christian hermits lived and died. You see one 
green place far down in the valley : it is called En Rogel. 
Adonijah feasted there, who was killed by his brother Solomon, 
for asking for Abishag for wife. The valley of Hinnom skirts 
the hill : the dismal ravine was a fruitful garden once. Ahaz, 
and the idolatrous kings, sacrificed to idols under the green trees 
there, and " caused their children to pass through the fire." On 
the mountain opposite, Solomon, with the thousand women of his 
harem, worshipped the gods of all their nations, " Ashtoreh," and 
" Milcom, and Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites." An 
enormous charnel-house stands on the hill where the bodies of 
dead pilgrims used to be thrown ; and common belief has fixed 
upon this spot as the Aceldama, which Judas purchased with the 
price of his treason. Thus you go on from one gloomy place to 
another, each seared with its bloody tradition. Yonder is the 
Temple, and you think of Titus's soldiery storming its flaming 
porches, and entering the city, in the savage defence of which 
two million human souls perished. It was on Mount Zion that 
Godfrey and Tancred had their camp : when the Crusaders en- 
tered the mosque, they rode knee deep in the blood of its de- 
fenders, and of the women and children, who had fled thither for 
refuge : it was the victory of Joshua over again. Then, after 
three days of butchery, they purified the desecrated mosque and 



THE CHURCH OF THE SEPULCHRE. 123 

went lo prayer. In the centre of this history of crime, rises up 
the Great Murder of all. * * * * 

I need say no more about this gloomy landscape. After a 
man has seen it once, he never forgets it — the recollection of it 
seems to me to follow him like a remorse, as it were to implicate 
him in the awful deed which was done there. Oh ! with what 
unspeakable shame and terror should one think of that crime, 
and prostrate himself before the image of that Divine Blessed 
Sufferer ! 

Of course, the first visit of the traveller is to the famous 
Church of the Sepulchre. 

In the archway, leading from the street to the court and church, 
there is a little bazaar of Bethlehemites, who must interfere con- 
siderably with the commerce of the Latin fathers. These men 
bawl to you from their stalls, and hold up for your purchase their 
devotional baubles, — bushels of rosaries and scented beads, and 
carved mother-of-pearl shells, and rude stone salt-cellars and 
figures. Now that inns are established, — envoys of these pedlars 
attend them on the arrival of strangers, squat all day on the ter- 
races before your door, and patiently entreat you to buy of their 
goods. Some worthies there are who drive a good trade by tat- 
tooing pilgrims with the five crosses, the arms of Jerusalem ; 
under which the name of the city is punctured in Hebrew, with 
the auspicious year of the Hadgi's visit. Several of our fellow- 
travellers submitted to this queer operation, and will carry, to 
their grave, this relic of their journey. Some of them had en- 
gaged a servant, a man, at Beyrout, who had served as a lad on 
board an English ship in the Mediterranean. Above his tattooage 
of the five crosses, the fellow had a picture of two hearts united, 
and the pathetic motto, " Betsy, my dear." He had parted with 
Betsy, my dear, five years before at Malta. He had known a 
little English there, but had forgotten it. Betsy, my dear, was 
forgotten too. Only her name remained engraved with a vain 
simulacrum of constancy on the faithless rogue's skin : on which 
was now printed another token of equally effectual devotion. 
The beads and the tattooing, however, seem essential ceremonies 
attendant on the Christian pilgrim^ visit ; for many hundreds of 



124 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

years, doubtless, the palmers have carried off with them these 
simple reminiscences of the sacred city- That symbol has been 
engraven upon the arms of how many Princes, Knights, and 
Crusaders ! Don't you see a moral as applicable to them as to 
the swindling Beyrout horseboy ? I have brought you back that 
cheap and wholesome apologue, in lieu of any of the Bethle- 
hemite shells and beads. 

After passing through the porch of the pedlars, you come to the 
court-yard in front of the noble old towers of the Church of the 
Sepulchre, with pointed arches and gothic traceries, rude, but rich 
and picturesque in design. Here crowds are waiting in the sun, 
until it shall please the Turkish guardians of the church-door to 
open. A swarm of beggars sit here permanently : old tattered 
hags with long veils, ragged children, blind old bearded beggars, 
who raise up a chorus of prayers for money, holding out their 
wooden bowls, or clattering with their sticks on the stones, or 
pulling your coat-skirts, and moaning and whining : yonder sit a 
group of coal-black Coptish pilgrims, with robes and turbans of 
dark blue, fumbling their perpetual beads. A party of Arab 
Christians have come up from their tents or villages : the men 
half-naked, looking as if they were beggars, or banditti, upon 
occasion ; the women have flung their head-cloths back, and are 
looking at the strangers under their tattooed eyebrows. As for 
the strangers, there is no need to describe them j that figure of 
the Englishman, with his hands in his pockets, has been seen all 
the world over : staring down the crater of Vesuvius, or into a 
Hottentot kraal; or at a pyramid, or a Parisian coffee-house, or 
an Esquimaux hut, with the same insolent calmness of demeanor. 
When the gales of the church are open, he elbows in among the 
first, and flings a few scornful piastres to the Turkish door-keeper ; 
and gazes round easily at the place, in which people of every 
other nation in the world are in tears, or in rapture, or wonder. 
He has never seen the place until now, and looks as indifferent as 
the Turkish guardian who sits in the doorway, and swears at the 
people as they pour in. 

Indeed, I believe, it is impossible for us to comprehend the 
source and nature of the Rom^n Catholic devotion. I once went 
into a church at Rome, at the request of a Catholic friend, who 



GREEK AND LATIN LEGENDS. 125 

described the interior to be so beautiful and glorious, that he thought 
(he said) it must be like heaven itself. I found walls hung with 
cheap stripes of pink and white calico, altars covered with arti- 
ficial flowers, a number of wax candles, and plenty of gilt paper 
ornaments. The place seemed to me like a shabby theatre ; and 
here was my friend on his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture 
of wonder and devotion. 

I could get no better impressions out of this the most famous 
Church in the world.* The deceits are too open and flagrant; the 
inconsistencies and contrivances too monstrous. It is hard even 
to sympathize with persons who receive them as genuine ; and 
though (as I know and saw in the case of my friend at Rome) the 
believer's life may be passed in the purest exercise of faith and 
charity, it is difficult even to give him credit for honesty, so bare- 
faced seem the impostures which he professes to believe and 
reverence. It costs one no small effort even to admit the possi- 
bility of a Catholic's credulity : to share in his rapture and de- 
votion is still further out of your power ; and I could get from 
this Church no other emotions but those of shame and pain. 

The Legends with which the Greeks and Latins have garnished 
the spot, have no more sacredness for you than the hideous, un- 
real, barbaric pictures and ornaments which they have lavished 
on it. Look at the fervor with which the pilgrims kiss and weep 
over a tawdry Gothic painting, scarcely better fashioned than an 
idol in a South Sea Moral. The histories, which they are called 
upon to reverence, are of the same period and order, — savage 
Gothic caricatures. In either, a saint appears in the costume of 
the middle ages, and is made to accommodate himself to the 
fashion of the tenth century. 

The different churches battle for the possession of the various 
relics. The Greeks show you the tomb of Melchisedec, while 
the Armenians possess the Chapel of the Penitent Thief; the poor 
Copts (with their little cabin of a chapel) can yet boast of possess- 
ing the thicket in which Abraham caught the Ram, which was to 
serve as the vicar of Isaac ; the Latins point out the Pillar to 
which the Lord was bound. The place of the Invention of the 
Sacred Cross, the Fissure in the Rock of Golgotha, the Tomb of 
Adam himself — are all here within a few yards' space. You 



126 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO 

mount a few steps, and are told it is Calvary upon which you 
stand. All this in the midst of flaring candles, reeking incense, 
savage pictures of Scripture story, or portraits of kings who have 
been benefactors to the various chapels ; a din and clatter of 
strange people, — these weeping, bowing, kissing, — those utterly 
inditferent ; and the priests clad in outlandish robes, snuffling and 
chanting incomprehensible litanies, robing, disrobing, lighting up 
candles or extinguishing them, advancing, retreating, bowing 
with all sorts of unfamiliar genuflexions, flad it pleased the in- 
ventors of the Sepulchre topography to have fixed on fifty more 
spots of ground, as the places of the events of the sacred story, 
the pilgrim would have believed just as now. The priest's au- 
thority has so mastered his faith, that it accommodates itself to 
any demand upon it ; and the English stranger looks on the scene, 
for the first time, with a feeling of scorn, bewilderment, and 
shame, at that grovelling credulity, those strange rites and ce- 
remonies, that almost confessed imposture. 

Jarred and distracted by these, the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre, for some time, seems to an Englishman the least sacred spot 
about Jerusalem. It is the lies, and the legends, and the priests, 
and their quarrels, and their ceremonies, which keep the Holy 
Place out of sight. A man has not leisure to view it, for the 
brawling of the guardians of the spot. The Roman conquerors, 
they say, raised up a statue of Venus in this sacred place, intend- 
ing to destroy all memory of it. ] don't think the heathen was 
as criminal as the Christian is now. To deny and disbelieve, is 
not so bad as to make belief a ground to cheat upon. The liar 
Ananias perished for that ; and yet out of these gates, where an- 
gels may have kept watch — out of the tomb of Christ — Christian 
priests issue with a lie in their hands. What a place to choose 
for imposture, good God ! to sully, with brutal struggles for self- 
aggrandizement, or shameful schemes of gain ! 

The situation of the Tomb (into which, be it authentic or not, 
no man can enter without a shock of breathless fear, and deep 
and awful self-humiliation) must have struck all travellers. It 
stands in the centre of the arched rotunda, which is common to 
all denominations, and from which branch ofl" the various chapels 
belonging to each particular sect. In the Coptic Chapel I saw 



BETHLEHEM. 127 



one coal-black Copt, in blue robes, cowering in the little cabin, 
surrounded by dingy lamps, barbarous pictures, and cheap, faded 
trumpery. In the Latin Church, there was no service going on, 
only two fathers dusting the mouldy gew-gaws along the brown 
walls, and laughing to one another. The gorgeous church of 
the Fire impostors, hard by, was always more fully attended ; as 
was that of their wealthy neighbors, the Armenians. These 
three main sects hate each other : their quarrels are intermina- 
ble : each bribes and intrigues with the heathen lords of the soil, 
to the prejudice of his neighbor. Now it is the Latins who in- 
terfere, and allow the common church to go to ruin, because the 
Greeks purpose to roof it : now the Greeks demolish a monastery 
on Mount- Olivet, and leave the ground to the Turks, rather than 
allow the Armenians to possess it. On another occasion, the 
Greeks having mended the Armenian steps, which led to the (so 
called) Cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem, the latter asked for 
permission to destroy the work of the Greeks, and did so. And 
so round this sacred spot, the centre of Christendom, the repre- 
sentatives of the three great sects worship under one roof, and 
hate each other ! 

Above the Tomb of the Saviour, the cupola is open, and you 
see the blue sky overhead. Which of the builders was it that 
had the grace to leave that under the high protection of heaven, 
and not confine it under the mouldering old domes and roofs, 
which cover so much selfishness, and uncharitableness, and 
imposture ! 

We went to Bethlehem, too ; and saw the apocryphal wonders 
there. 

Five miles' ride brings you from .Jerusalem to it, over naked 
wavy hills ; the aspect of which, however, grows more cheerful 
as you approach the famous village. We passed the Convent of 
Mar Elyas on the road, walled and barred like a fort. In spite 
of its strength, however, it has more than once been stormed by 
the Arabs, and the luckless fathers within put to death. Hard 
by was Rebecca's Well : a dead body was lying there, and 
crowds of male and female mourners dancing and howling round 
it. Now and then a little troop of savage scowling horsemen — a 



128 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

shepherd driving his black sheep, his gun over his shoulder — a 
troop of camels — or of women, with long blue robes and white 
veils, bearing pitchers, and staring at the strangers with their 
great solemn eyes — or a company of laborers, with their donkeys, 
bearing grain or grapes to the city, — met us and enlivened the 
little ride. It was a busy and cheerful scene. The Church of 
the Nativity, with the adjoining Convents, forms a vast and noble 
Christian structure. A party of travellers vv^ere going to the Jor- 
dan that day, and scores of their followers, — of the robbing Arabs, 
who profess to protect them (magnificent figures some of them, 
with flowing haicks and turbans, with long guns and scimitars, 
and wretched horses, covered with gaudy trappings), were stand- 
ing on the broad pavement before the little Convent gate. It was 
such a scene as Cattermole might paint. Knights and Crusaders 
may have witnessed a similar one. You could fancy them issu- 
ing out of the narrow little portal, and so greeted by the swarms 
of sv/arthy clamorous women and merchants and children. 

The scene within the building was of the same Gothic charac- 
ter. We were entertained by the Superior of the Greek Con- 
vent, in a fine refectory, with ceremonies and hospitalities that 
pilgrims of the middle ages might have witnessed. We were 
shown over the magnificent Barbaric Church, visited of course the 
Grotto where the Blessed Nativity is said to have taken place, and 
the rest of the idols set up for worship by the clumsy legend. 
When the visit was concluded, the party going to the Dead Sea 
filed off with their armed attendants ; each individual traveller 
making as brave a show as he could, and personally accoutred 
with warlike swords and pistols. The picturesque crowds, and 
the Arabs and the horsemen, in the sunshine ; the noble old con- 
vent, and the grey-bearded priests, with their feast ; and the 
church, and its pictures, and columns, and incense ; the wide 
brown hills spreading round the village ; with the accidents of 
the road, — flocks and shepherds, wells, and funerals, and camel- 
trains, have left on my mind a brilliant, romantic, and cheerful 

picture. But you, Dear M , without visiting the place, have 

imagined one far finer ; and Bethlehem, where the Holy Child 
was born, and the angels sang, " Glory to God in the highest, and 



BETHLEHEM. 129 



peace and good-will on earth," is the most sacred and beautiful 
spot in the earth to you. 

By far the most comfortable quarters in Jerusalem are those 
of the Armenians, in their convent of St. James. Wherever we 
have been, these Eastern quakers look grave, and jolly, and 
sleek. Their convent at Mount Zion is big enough to contain 
two or three thousand of their faithful ; and their church is orna- 
mented by the most rich and hideous gifts ever devised by un- 
couth piety. Instead of a bell, the fat monks of the convent beat 
huge noises on a board, and drub the faithful into prayers. I 
never saw men more lazy and rosy than these reverend fathers, 
kneeling in their comfortable matted church, or sitting in easy de- 
votion. Pictures, images, gilding, tinsel, wax-candles, twinkle all 
over the place ; and ten thousand ostriches' eggs (or any lesser 
number you may allot) dangle from the vaulted ceiling. There 
were great numbers of people at worship in this gorgeous church ; 
they went on their knees, kissing the walls with much fervor, and 
paying reverence to the most precious relic of the convent, — the 
chair of St. James, their Patron, the first Bishop of Jerusalem. 

The chair pointed out with greatest pride in the church of the 
Latin Convent, is that shabby red damask one appropriated to the 
French Consul, — the representative of the king of that nation, — 
and the protection which it has from time immemorial accorded 
to the Christians of the Latin rite in Syria. All French writers 
and travellers speak of this protection with delightful compla- 
cency. Consult the French books of travel on the subject, and 
any Frenchman whom you may meet ; he says. La France, Mon- 
sieur, de tous les temps protege les Chretiens d^ Orient ; and the 
little fellow looks round the church with a sweep of the arm, and 
protects it accordingly. ^It is hon ton for them to go in proces- 
sions ; and you see them on such errands, marching with long 
Candles, as gravely as may be. But I have never been able to 
edify myself with their devotion : and the religious outpourings 
of Lamartine and Chateaubriand, which we have all been read- 
ing d propos of the journey we are to make, have inspired me 
with an emotion anything but respectful. Voyez comme M de 
Chateaubriand prie Dieu, the Viscount's eloquence seems always 
7* 



130 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

to say. There is a sanctified grimace about the little French 
pilgrim, which it is very difficult to contemplate gravely. 

The pictures, images, and ornaments of the principal Latin 
Convent, are quite mean and poor, compared to the wealth of the 
Armenians. The convent is spacious, but squalid. Many hop- 
ping and crawling plagues are said to attack the skins of pil- 
grims who sleep there. It is laid out in courts and galleries, the 
mouldy doors of which are decorated with twopenny pictures of 
favorite saints and martyrs ; and so great is the shabbiness and 
laziness, that you might fancy yourself in a convent in Italy. 
Brown-clad fathers, dirty, bearded, and sallow, go gliding about 
the corridors. The relic manufactory, before mentioned, carries 
on a considerable business ; and dispatches bales of shells, crosses, 
and beads, to believers in Europe. These constitute the chief 
revenue of the convent now. La France is no longer the most 
Christian kingdom, and her protection of the Latin is not good for 
much since Charles X. was expelled ; and Spain, which used 
likewise to be generous on occasions (the gifts, arms, candlesticks, 
baldaquins, of the Spanish Sovereigns, figure pretty frequently in 
the various Latin chapels), has been stingy since the late disturb- 
ances, the spoliation of the clergy, &c. After we had been taken 
to see the humble curiosities of the place, the Prior treated us in 
his wooden parlor with little glasses of pink rosolio, brought with 
many bows and genuflexions by his reverence, the convent 
butler. 

After this community of holy men, the most important perhaps 
is the American Convent, a Protestant congregation of Independ- 
ents chiefly, who deliver tracts, propose to make converts, have 
meetings of their own, and also swell the little congregation that 
attends the Anglican service. I have mentioned our fellow tra- 
veller, the Consul-General for Syria of ffee United States. He 
was a tradesman, who had made a considerable fortune, and 
lived at a country house in comfortable retirement. But his 
opinion is, that the prophecies of Scripture are about to be ac- 
complished ; that the day of the return of the Jews is at hand, 
and the glorification of the restored Jerusalem. He is to witness 
this ; he and a favorite dove with which he travels ; and he for- 
sook home and comfortable country house, in order to make this 



AN AMERICAN CONSUL. 131 

journey. He has no other knowledge of Syria but what he de- 
rives from the prophecy ; and this (as he takes the office gratis) 
has been considered a sufficient reason for his appointment by the 
United States Government. As soon as he arrived, he sent and 
demanded an interview with the Pasha ; explained to him his 
interpretation of the Apocalypse, in which he has discovered that 
the Five Powers and America are about to intervene in Syrian 
affairs, and the infallible return of the Jews to* Palestine. The 
news must have astonished the Lieutenant of the sublime Porte ; 
and since the days of the Kingdom of Munster, under his Anabap- 
tist Majesty, John of Leyden, I doubt whether any Government 
has received or appointed so queer an ambassador. The kind, 
worthy, simple man, took me to his temporary Consulate House at 
the American Missionary Establishment; and, under pretence 
of treating me to white wine, expounded his ideas ; talked of futu- 
rity as he would about an article in the " Times ;" and had no 
more doubt of seeing a divine kingdom established in Jerusalem, 
than you that there will be a levee next spring at St. James's. 
The little room in which we sat, was padded with Missionary 
tracts, but I heard of scarce any converts — not more than are 
made by our own Episcopal establishment. 

But if the latter's religious victories are small, and very few 
people are induced by the American tracts, and the English 
preaching and catechizing, to forsake their own manner of wor- 
shipping the Divine Being, in order to follow ours ; yet surely 
our religious colony of men and women can't fail to do good, by 
the sheer force of good example, pure life, and kind offices. The 
ladies of the mission have numbers of clients, of all persuasions, 
in the town, to whom they extend their charities. — Each of their 
houses is a model of neatness, and a dispensary of gentle kind- 
nesses ; and the ecclesiastics have formed a modest centre of 
civilisation in the place. A dreary joke was made in the House 
of Commons about Bishop Alexander and the Bishopess his lady, 
and the Bishoplings his numerous children, who were said to have 
scandalised the people of Jerusalem. That sneer evidently came 
from the Latins and Greeks ; for what could the Jews and Turks 
-care because an English clergyman had a wife and children as 
their own priests have ? There was no sort of ill-will exhibited 



132 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

towards them, as far as I could learn ; and I saw the Bishop's 
children riding about the town as safely as they could about Hyde 
Park. All Europeans, indeed, seem to me to be received with 
forbearance, and almost courtesy, within the walls. As I was 
going about making sketches, the people would look on very good- 
humoredly, without offering the least interruption ; nay, two or 
three were quite ready to stand still for such an humble portrait as 
my pencil could make of them ; and the sketch done, it was passed 
from one person to another, each making his comments, and 
signifying a very polite approval. With the Arabs outside 
the walls, however, and the freshly arriving country people, 
this politeness was not so much exhibited. There was a 
certain tattooed girl, with black eyes, and huge silver ear- 
rings, and a chin delicately picked out with blue, who formed 
one of a group of women outside the great convent, whose 
likeness I longed to carry off; — there was a woman, with a little 
child, with wondering eyes, drawing water at the pool of Siloam. 
in such an attitude and dress as Rebecca may have had when 
Isaac's lieutenant asked her for drink : — both of these parties 
standing still for half a minute, at the next cried out for back- 
sheesh ; and not content with the five piastres which I gave them 
individually, screamed out for more, and summoned their friends, 
who screamed out backsheesh too. I was pursued into the con- 
vent by a dozen howling women calling for pay, barring the door 
against them, to the astonishment of the worthy papa who kept 
it ; and at Miriam's Well the women were joined by a man, 
with a large stick, who backed their petition. But him we could 
afford to laugh at, for we were two, and had sticks likewise. 

In the village of Siloam I would not recommend the artist to 
loiter. A colony of ruffians inhabit the dismal place, who have 
guns as well as sticks at need. Their dogs howl after the stran- 
gers as they pass through ; and over the parapets of their walls 
you are saluted by the scowls of a villainous set of countenances, 
that it is not good to see with one pair of eyes. They shot a man 
at mid-day at a few hundred yards from the gates while we were 
at Jerusalem, and no notice was taken of the murder. Hordes 
of Arab robbers infest the neighborhood of the city, with the 
sheikhs of whom travellers make terms when minded to pursue 



DEPARTURE. 133 



their journey. I never could understand why the walls stopped 
these warriors if they had a mind to plunder the city, for there 
are but a hundred and fifty men in the garrison to man the long 
lonely lines of defence. 

I have seen only in Titian's pictures those magnificent purple 
shadows, in which the hills round about lay, as the dawn rose 
faintly behind them ; and we looked at Olivet for the last time, 
from our terrace, where we were awaiting the arrival of the 
horses that were to carry us to Jaffa. A yellow moon was still 
blazing in the midst of countless brilliant stars overhead ; the 
nakedness and misery of the surrounding city were hidden in that 
beautiful rosy atmosphere of mingling night and dawn. The 
city never looked so noble ; the mosques, domes, and minarets 
rising up into the calm star-lit sky. 

By the gate of Bethlehem there stands one palm-tree, and a 
house with three domes. Put these and the huge old gothic gate 
as a background dark against the yellowing eastern sky : the 
fore-ground is a deep grey : — as you look into it dark forms of 
horsemen come out of the twilight: now there came lanterns, 
more horsemen, a litter with mules, a crowd of Arab horseboys 
and dealers accompanying their beasts to the gate ; all the mem- 
bers of our party come up by twos and threes ; and, at last, the 
great gate opens just before sunrise, and we get into the grey 
plains. 

O ! the luxury of an English saddle ! An English servant of 
one of the gentlemen of the mission procured it for me, on the 
back of a little mare, which (as I am a light weight) did not turn 
a hair in the course of the day's march — and after we got quit 
of the ugly, stony, clattering, mountainous Abou Gosh district, 
into the fair undulating plain, which stretches to Ramleh — carried 
me into the town at a pleasant hand gallop. A negro, of preter- 
natural ugliness, in a yellow gown, with a crimson handkerchief 
streaming over his head, digging his shovel spurs into the lean 
animal he rode, and driving three others before — swaying back- 
wards and forwards on his horse, now embracing his ears, and 
now almost under his belly, screaming yallah with the most fright- 
ful shrieks, and singing country songs — galloped along ahead of 



134 . A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

me. I acquired one of his poems pretty well, and could imitate 
his shriek accurately ; but I shall not have the pleasure of sing- 
ing it to you in England. I had forgotten the delightful disso- 
nance two days after, both the negro's and that of a real Arab 
minstrel, a donkey driver accompanying our baggage, who sang 
and grinned with the most amusing good humor. 

We halted, in the middle of the day, in a little wood of olive 
trees, which forms almost the only shelter between Jaffa and Je- 
rusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious village 
of Abou Gosh, through which we went at a double quick pace. 
Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends took 
a siesta. I have a sketch of four of them so employed. Two of 
them were dead within a month of the fatal Syrian fever. But 
we did not know how near Fate was to us then. Fires were 
lighted, and fowls and eggs divided, and tea and coffee served 
round in tin panikins, and here we lighted pipes and smoked and 
laughed at our ease. I believe everybody was happy to be out 
of Jerusalem. The impression I have of it now is of ten days 
passed in a fever. 

We all found quarters in the Greek convent, at Ramleh, where 
the monks served us a supper on a terrace, in a pleasant sunset ; 
a beautiful and cheerful landscape stretching around ; the land in 
graceful undulations, the towers and mosques rosy in the sunset, 
with no lack of verdure, especially of graceful palms. Jaffa was 
nine miles off. As we rode, all the morning we had been ac- 
companied by the smoke of our steamer, twenty miles off at sea. 

The convent is a huge caravansera ; only three or four monks 
dwell in it, the ghostly hotel-keepers of the place. The horses 
were tied up and fed in the court-yard, into which we rode ; above 
were the living rooms, where there is accommodation, not only for 
an unlimited number of pilgrims, but for a vast and innumerable 
host of hopping and crawling things, who usually persist in par- 
taking of the traveller's bed. Let all thin-skinned travellers in 
the east be warned on no account to travel without the admirable 
invention described in Mr. Fellowes's book ; nay, possibly invented 
by that enterprising and learned traveller. You make a sack, of 
calico or linen, big enough for the body, appended to which is a 
closed chimney of muslin, stretched out by cane hoops, and fast- 



RAMLEH. 135 



ened up to a beam, or against the wall. You keep a sharp eye to 
look out that no flea or bug is on the look out, and when assured 
of this, you pop into the bag, tightly closing the orifice after you. 
This admirable bug-disappointer I tried at Ramleh, and had the 
only undisturbed night's rest 1 enjoyed in the east. To be sure it 
was a short night. Tor our party were stirring at one o'clock, and 
those who got up insisted on talking and keeping awake those who 
inclined to sleep. But I shall never forget the terror inspired in 
my mind, being shut up in the bug disappointer, when a facetious 
lay brother of the convent fell upon me and began ticklhig me. 
I never had the courage again to try the anti-flea contrivance, 
preferring the friskiness of those animals to the sports of such a 
greasy grinning wag as my friend at Ramleh. 

In the morning, and long before sunrise, our little caravan was 
in marching order again. We went out with lanterns, and shouts 
of yallah through the narrow streets, and issued into the plain, 
where, though there was no moon, there were blazing stars shining 
steadily overhead. They become friends to a man who travels, 
especially under the clear eastern sky ; whence they look down 
as if protecting you, solemn, yellow, and refulgent. They seem 
nearer to you than in Europe ; larger and more awful. So we 
rode on till the dawn rose, and Jaffa came in view. The friendly 
ship was lying out in waiting for us ; the horses were given up to 
their owners ; and in the midst of a crowd of naked beggars, and 
a perfect storm of curses and yells for backsheesh, our party got 
into their boats, and to the ship, where we were welcomed by the 
very best Captain that ever sailed upon this maritime globe, 
namely. Captain Samuel Lewis, of the Peninsular and Oriental 
Company's Service. 



136 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



XIV, 

FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA 
[From the Provider's Log-Book.] 

BILL OF FARE, October 12th. 

Mulligatawny Soup. 

Salt Fish and Egg Sauce. 

Roast Haunch of Mutton. 

Boiled Shoulder and Onion Sauce 

Boiled Beef. 

Roast Fowls. 

Pillow ditto. 

Ham. 

Haricot Mutton. 

Curry and Rice. 



French Beans. 
Boiled Potatoes. 
Baked ditto. 

Damson Tart. 
Currant ditto. 
Rice Puddings. 
Currant Fritters. 

We were just at the port's mouth — and could see the towers and 
buildings of Alexandria rising purple against the sunset, when the 
report of a gun came booming over the calm golden water ; and 
we heard, with much mortification, that we had no chance of get- 
ting pratique that night. Already the ungrateful passengers had 
begun to tire of the ship, — though in our absence in Syria it had 
been carefully cleansed and purified ; though it was cleared of 
the swarming Jews, who had infected the decks all the way from 



FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA. 137 

Constantinople ; and though we had been feasting and carousing 
in the manner described in the last page. 

But very early next morning we bore into the harbor, busy with 
a great quantity of craft. We passed huge black hulks of mould- 
ering men-of-war, from the sterns of which trailed the dirty red 
flag, with the star and crescent ; boats, manned with red-capped 
seamen, and captains and steersmen in beards and tarbooshes, 
passed continually among these old hulks, the rowers bending to 
their oars, so that, at each stroke, they disappeared bodily in the 
boat. Besides these, there was a large fleet of country ships, and 
stars, and stripes, and tricolors, and union-jacks; and many active 
steamers, of the French and English companies, shooting in and 
out of the harbor, or moored in the briny waters. The ship of 
our company, the " Oriental," lay there — a palace upon the brine, 
and some of the Pasha's steam-vessels likewise, looking very like 
Christian boats ; but it Was queer to look at some unintelligible 
Turkish flourish painted on the stern, and the long-tailed Arabian 
hieroglyphics gilt on the paddle-boxes. Our dear friend and com- 
rade of Beyrout (if we may be permitted to call her so), H. M. S. 
Trump, was in the harbor ; and the captain of that gallant ship, 
coming to greet us, drove some of us on shore in his gig. 

I had been preparing myself overnight, by the help of a cigar 
and a moonlight contemplation on deck, for sensations on landing 
in Egypt. I was ready to yield myself up with solemnity to the 
mystic grandeur of the scene of initiation. Pompey's pillar must 
stand like a mountain, in- a yellow plain, surrounded by a grove 
of obelisks, as tall as palm-trees. Placid sphinxes, brooding o'er 
the Nile — mighty Memnonian countenances calm — had revealed 
Egypt to me in a sonnet of Tennyson's, and I v/as ready to gaze 
on it with pyramidal wonder and hieroglyphic awe. 

The landing quay at Alexandria is like the dock-yard quay at 
Portsmouth : with a few score of brown faces scattered among the 
population. There are slop-sellers, dealers in marine stores, bot- 
tled porter shops, seamen lolling about ; flies and cabs are plying 
for hire : and a yelling chorus of donkey boys, shrieking, " Ride, 
sir ! — donkey, sir ! I say, sir !" in excellent English, dispel all 
romantic notions. Tlie placid sphinxes, brooding o'er the Nile, 
disappeared with that shriek of- the donkey boys. You might 



138 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

be as well impressed with Wapping, as with your first step on 
Egyptian soil. 

The riding of a donkey is, after all, not a dignified occupation. 
A man resists the offer first, somehow as an indignity. How is 
that poor little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you ? 
Is there to be one for you and another for your legs ? Natives 
and Europeans, of all sizes, passed by, it is true, mounted upon 
the same contrivance. I waited until I got into a very private 
spot, where nobody could see me, and then ascended — why not 
say descended, at once — on the poor little animal. Instead of be- 
ing crushed at once, as perhaps the rider expected, it darted for- 
ward, quite briskly and cheerfully, at six or seven miles an hour; 
requiring no spur or admonitive to haste, except the shrieking of 
the little Egyptian Jamin, who ran along by asinus's side. 

The character of the houses, by which you pass, is scarcely 
Eastern at all. The streets are busy with a motley population 
of Jews and Armenians, slave-driving looking Europeans, large- 
breeched Greeks, and well-shaven buxom merchants, looking as 
trim and fat as those on the Bourse or on 'Change ; only, among 
the natives, the stranger can't fail to remark (as the Caliph did 
of the Calendars, in the Arabian Nights), that so many of them 
have only one eye. It is the horrid ophthalmia which has played 
such frightful ravages with them. You see children sitting in the 
doorways, their eyes completely closed up with the green sicken- 
ing sore, and the flies feeding on them. Five or six minutes of 
the donkey ride brings you to the Frank quarter, and the hand- 
some broad street (like a street of Marseilles), where the principal 
hotels and merchants' houses are to be found, and where the con- 
suls have their houses, and hoist their flags. The palace of the 
French Consul General makes the grandest show in the street, 
and presents a great contrast to the humble abode of the English 
representative, who protects his fellow-countrymen from a second 
floor. 

But that Alexandrian two-pair front of a Consulate was more 
welcome and cheering than a palace to most of us. For there 
lay certain letters, with post-marks of Home upon them ; and 
kindly tidings, the first heard for two months : — though we had 
seen so many men and cities since, that Cornhill seemed to be a 



FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA. J 39 

year off, at least, with certain persons dwelling (more or less) in 
that vicinity. I saw a young Oxford man seize his dispatchesj 
and slink off with several letters, written in a tight, neat hand, 
and sedulously crossed ; which any man could see, without look- 
ing farther, were the handywork of Mary Ann, to whom he is 
attached. The lawyer received a bundle from his chambers, in 
which his clerk eased his soul regarding the state of Snooks v. 
Rodgers, Smith ats Tomkins, &c. The statesman had a packet 
of thick envelopes; decorated with that profusion of sealing-wax, 
in which official recklessness lavishes the resources of the coun- 
try : and your humble servant got just one little, modest letter, 
containing another, written in pencil characters, varying in size 
between one and two inches ; but how much pleasanter to read 
than my lord's dispatch, or the clerk's account of Smith ats Tom- 
kins, — yes, even than the Mary Ann correspondence ! . . . . 
Yes, my dear madam, you will understand me, when I say, that 
it was from little Polly at home, with some confidential news 
about a cat, and the last report of her new doll. 

It is worth while to have made the journey for this pleasure : 
to have walked the decks on long nights, and have thought of 
home. You have no leisure to do so in the city. You don't see 
the heavens shine above you so purely there, or the stars so 
clearly. — How, after the perusal of the above documents, we en- 
joyed a file of the admirable Galignani ; and what O'Connell was 
doing ; and the twelve last new victories of- the French in Alge- 
ria ; and, above all, six or seven numbers of Punch ! There 
might have been an avenue of Pompey's pillars within reach, and 
a live sphinx sporting on the banks of the Mahmoodieh canal, and 
we would not have stirred to see them, until Punch had had his 
interview, and Galignani wa^s dismissed. 

The curiosities of Alexandria are few, and easily seen. We 
went into the bazaars, which have a much more Eastern look 
^han the European quarter, with its Anglo-Gallic-Ttalian inhabit- 
ants, and Babel-like civilisation. Here and there a large hotel, 
clumsy and white-washed, with Oriental trelliced windows, and 
a couple of slouching sentinels at the doors, in the ugliest compo- 
site uniform that ever was seen, was pointed out as the residence 
of some great officer of the Pasha's court, or of one of the mi- 



140 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

merous children of the Egyptian Solomon. His Highness was 
in his own palace, which was consequently not visible. He was 
in deep grief, and strict retirement. It was at this time that the 
European newspapers announced that he was about to resign his 
empire ; but the quidnuncs of Alexandria hinted that a love- 
affair, in which the old potentate had engaged with senile extra- 
vagance, and the effects of a potion of hachich, or some deleteri- 
ous drug, with which he was in the habit of intoxicating himself, 
had brought on that languor and desperate weariness of life and 
governing, into which the venerable Prince was plunged. Be 
fore three days were over, however, the fit had left him, and he 
determined to live and reign a little longer. A very few days 
afterwards several of our party were presented to him at Cairo, 
and found the great Egyptian ruler perfectly convalescent. 

This, and the Opera, and the quarrels of the two prime doniie, 
and the beauty of one of them, formed the chief subject of 
conversation ; and I had these important news in the shop of a 
certain barber in the town, who conveyed it in a language com- 
posed of French, Spanish, and Italian, and with a volubility quite 
worthy of a barber of Gil Bias. 

Then we went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet 
Ali to the British Government, who have not shown a particular 
alacrity to accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies 
on the ground prostrate, and desecrated by all sorts of abomina- 
tions. Children v/ere sprawling about, attracted by the dirt 
there. . Arabs, negroes, and donkey boys, were passing, quite 
indifferent, by the fallen monster of a stone, — as indifferent as the 
British Government, who don't care for recording the glorious 
termination of their Egyptian campaign of 1801. If our coun- 
try takes the compliment so coolly, surely it would be disloyal 
upon our parts to be more enthusiastic. I wish they would offer 
the Trafalgar Square Pillar to the Egyptians ; and that both of 
the huge, ugly monsters, were lying in the dirt there, side by 
side. 

Pompey's Pillar is by no means so big as the Charing-Cross 
trophy. This venerable column has not escaped ill-treatment 
either. Numberless ship's companies, travelling cockneys, (fee, 
have affixed their rude marks upon it. Some daring ruffian even 



FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA. 14J 



^( 



painted the name of " Warren's blacking " upon it, effacing other 
inscriptions, — one, Wilkinson says, of " the second Psammeti- 
chus." I regret deeply, my dear friend, that I cannot give you 
this document respecting a lamented monarch, in whose history 
I know you take such an interest. 

The best sight I saw in Alexandria, was a negro holiday ; which 
was celebrated outside of the town by a sort of negro village of 
huts, swarming with old, lean, fat, ugly, infantine, happy faces, 
that Nature has smeared with a preparation even more black and 
durable than that with which Psammetichus's base has been 
polished. Every one of these jolly faces was on the broad grin, 
from the dusky mother to the India-rubber child sprawling upon 
her back, and the venerable jetty senior, whose wool was as 
white as that of a sheep, in Florian's pastorals. 

To these dancers a couple of fellows were playing on a drum 
and a little banjo. They were singing a chorus, which was not 
only singular, and perfectly marked in the rhythm, but exceed- 
ingly sweet in the tune. They danced in a circle ; and per- 
formers came trooping from all quarters, who fell into the round, 
and began waggling their heads, and waving their left hands, and 
tossing up and down the little thin rods which they each carried, 
and all singing to the very best of their power. 

I saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Turk at Constantinople 
pass by — but with what a different expression ! Though he is 
one of the greatest of the great in the Turkish Empire (ranking 
with a Cabinet minister or Lord Chamberlain here), his fine 
countenance was clouded with care, and savage with ennui. 

Here his black brethren were ragged, starving, and happy , 
and I need not tell such a fine moralist as you are, how it is the 
case, in the white as well as the black world, that happiness (re- 
publican leveller, who does not care a fig for the fashion) often 
disdains the turrets of kings, to pay a visit to the " tabernas 
pauperum." 

. We went the round of the coffee-houses in the evening, both 
the polite European places of resort, where you get ices and the 
French papers, and those in the town, where Greeks, Turks, and 
general company resort, to sit upon uncomfortable chairs, and 



142 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

^ m 

drink wretched muddy coffee, and to listen to two or three misera- 
ble musicians, who keep up a variation of howling for hours 
together. But the pretty song of the niggers had spoiled me for 
that abominable music. 



ATFEH. 143 



XV. 



TO CAIRO. 



We had no need of hiring the country boats which ply on the 
Mahmoodieh canal to Atfeh, where it joins the Nile, but were 
accommodated in one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's 
fly boats ; pretty similar to those narrow Irish canal boats, in 
which the enterprising traveller has been carried from Dublin 
to Ballinasloe-. The present boat was, to be sure, tugged by a 
little steamer, so that the Egyptian canal is a-head of the Irish 
in so far : in natural scenery, the one prospect is fully equal to 
the other ; it must be confessed that there is nothing to see. In 
truth, there was nothing but this : you saw a muddy bank on 
each side of you, and a blue sky overhead. A few round mud- 
huts and palm trees were planted along the line here and there. 
Sometimes we would see, on the water side, a woman in a blue 
robe, with her son by her, in that tight brown costume with which 
Nature had supplied him. Now, it was a hat dropped by one 
of the party into the water ; a brown Arab plunged and disap- 
peared incontinently after the hat, re-issued from the muddy 
water, prize in hand, and ran naked after the little steamer 
(which was by this time far a-head of him), his brawny limbs 
shining in the sun : then, we had half-cold fowls and bitter ale : 
then, we had dinner, — bitter ale and cold fowls ; with which in- 
cidents the day on the canal passed away, as harmlessly as if 
we had been in a Dutch trackschuyt. 

Towards evening we arrived at the town of Atfeh — half land, 
half houses, half palm trees, with swarms of half-naked people 
crowding the rustic shady bazaars, and bartering their produce 
of fruit or many-colored grain. Here the canal came to a check, 
ending abruptly with a large lock. Some little fleet of masts and 
country ships were beyond the lock, and it led into The Nile. 



144 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

After all, it is something to have seen these red waters. It is 
only low green banks, mud-huts, and palm-clumps, with the sun 
setting red behind them, and the great, dull, sinuous river, flash- 
ing; here and there in the light. But it is the Nile, the old Saturn 
of a stream — a divinity yet, though younger river-gods have de- 
posed him. Hail ! O venerable father of crocodiles ! We were 
all lost in sentiments of the profoundest awe and respect ; which 
we proved, by tumbling down into the cabin of the Nile steamer 
that was waiting to receive us, and fighting and cheating for 
sleeping berths. 

At dawn in the morning we were on deck ; the character had 
not altered of the scenery about the river. Vast flat stretches of 
land were on either side, recovering from the subsiding inunda- 
tions : near the mud villages, a country ship or two was roosting 
under the date trees ; the landscape everywhere stretching away 
level and lonely. In the sky in the east was a long streak of 
greenish light, which widened and rose until it grew to be of an 
opal color, then orange ; then, behold, the round red disk of the 
sun rose flaming up above the horizon. All the water blushed 
as he got up ; the deck was all red ; the steersman gave his helm 
to another, and prostrated himself on the deck, and bowed his 
head eastward, and praised the Maker of the sun : it shone on his 
white turban as he was kneeling, and gilt up his bronzed face, 
and sent his blue shadow over the glowing deck. The distances, 
which had been grey, were novi^ clothed in purple ; and the broad 
stream was illuminated. As the sun rose higher, the morning, 
blush faded away ; the sky was cloudless and pale, and the river 
and the surrounding landscape were dazzlingly clear. 

Looking a-head in an hour or two, we saw the Pyramids. 

Fancy my sensations, dear M ; — two big ones and a 'little 

one : 

There they lay, rosy and solemn in the distance, — those old, ma- 
jestical, mystical, familiar edifices. Several of us tried to be 
impressed ; but breakfast supervening, a rush was made at the 
coffee and cold pies, and the sentiment of awe was lost in the 
scramble for victuals. 



FIRST SIGHT OF CHEOPS. 145 

Are we so biases of the world that the greatest marvels in it 
do not succeed in moving us ? Have society, Pall Mall clubs, 
and a habit of sneering, so withered up our organs of veneration 
that we can admire no more ? My sensation with regard to the 
pyramids was, that I had seen them before : then came a feeling 
of shame that the view of them should awaken no respect. Then 
I wanted (naturally) to see whether my neighbors were any more 
enthusiastic than myself — Trinity College, Oxford, was busy with 
the cold ham : Downing Street was particularly attentive to a 
bunch of grapes : Fig Tree Court behaved with decent propriety ; 
he is in good practice, and of a conservative turn of mind, which 
leads him to respect from principle Us fails accomplis ; perhaps 
he remembered that one of them was as big as Lincoln's Inn 
Fields. But, the truth is, nobody was seriously moved. . . 
And why should they, because of an exaggeration of bricks ever 
so enormous ? I confess, for my part, that the pyramids are 
very big. 



After a voyage of about thirty hours, the steamer brought up 
at the quay of Boulak, amidst a small fleet of dirty comfortless 
Cangias, in which cottons and merchandise were loading and un- 
loading, and a huge noise and bustle on the shore. Numerous 
villas, parks, and country houses, had begun to decorate the Cairo 
bank of the stream ere this: residences of the Pasha's nobles, 
who have had orders to take their pleasure here and beautify the 
precincts of the capital ; tall factory chimneys also rise here ; 
there are foundries and steam-engine manufactories. These, and 
the pleasure-houses, stand as trim as soldiers on parade ; contrast- 
ing with the swarming, slovenly, close, tumble-down, eastern old 
town, that forms the out-port of Cairo, and was built before the 
importation of European taste and discipline. 

Here we alighted upon donkeys, to the full as brisk as those of 
Alexandria, invaluable to timid riders, and equal to any weight. 
We had a Jerusalem pony race into Cairo; ray animal beating 
all the rest by many lengths. The entrance to the capital, from 
Boulak, is very pleasant and picturesque — ^^over a fair road, and 
the wide planted plain of the Ezbekieh; where are gardens, 
8 



146 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

canals, fields, and avenues of trees, and where the great ones of 
the town come and take their pleasure. We saw many barouches 
driving about wdth fat Pashas, lolling on the cushions ; stately 
looking colonels and doctors taking their ride, followed by their 
orderlies or footmen ; lines of people taking pipes and sherbet in 
the coffee-houses ; and one of the pleasantest sights of all, — a fine 
new white building with Hotel d'Orient written up in huge 
French characters, and which, indeed, is an establishment as 
large and comfortable as most of the best Inns of the South of 
France. As a hundred Christian people, or more, come from 
England and from India every fortnight, this Inn has been built 
to accommodate a large proportion of them ; and twice a month, 
at least, its sixty rooms are full. 

The gardens from the windovv's give a very pleasant and ani- 
mated view^ : the hotel gate is besieged by crews of donkey- 
drivers ; the noble stately Arab women, with tawny skins (of 
which a simple robe of floating blue cotton enables you liberally 
to see the color) and large black eyes, come to the well hard by 
for w^ater : camels are perpetually arriving and setting down their 
loads : the court is full of bustling dragomans, ayahs, and children 
from India ; and poor old venerable he nurses, Avith grey beards 
and crimson turbans, tending little white-faced babies that have 
seen the light at Dumdum or Futtyghur : a copper-colored bar- 
ber, seated on his hams, is shaving a camel driver at the great 
Inn gate. The bells are ringing prodigiously : and Lieutenant 
Waghorn is bouncing in and out of the court-yard full of busi- 
ness. He only left Bombay yesterday morning, was seen in the 
Red Sea on Tuesday, is engaged to dinner this afternoon in the 
Regent's Park, and (as it is about two minutes since I saw him 
in the Court-yard) I make no doubt he is by this time at Alexan- 
dria or at Malta, say, perhaps, at both. II en est capaMe. If any 
man can be at two places at once (which I don't believe or deny) 
Waghorn is he. 

Six o'clock bell rings. Sixty people sit down to a quasi French 
banquet : thirty Indian officers in mustachoes and jackets ; ten 
civilians in ditto and spectacles ; ten pale-faced ladies with ring- 
lets, to whom all pay prodigious attention. All the pale ladies 
drink pale ale, which, perhaps, accounts for it ; in fact the Bom- 



THE HOTEL D'ORIENT. 147 

bay and Suez passengers have just arrived, and hence this crowd- 
ing and bustling, and display of military jackets and mustachoes, 
and ringlets and beauty. The windows are open, and a rush of 
musquitoes from the Ezbekieh waters, attracted by the wax can- 
dles, adds greatly to the excitement of the scene. There was a 
little tough old Major, who persisted in flinging open the windows, 
to admit these volatile creatures, with a noble disregard to their 
sting — and the pale ringlets did not seem to heed them either, 
though the delicate shoulders of some of them were bare. 

All the meat, ragouts, fricandeaux, and roasts, which are served 
round at dinner, seem to me to be of the same meat : a black 
uncertain sort of viand do these " flesh pots of Egypt " contain. 
But what the meat is no one knew : is it the donkey ? The 
animal is more plentiful than any other in Cairo. 

After dinner, the ladies retiring, some of us take a mixture of 
hot water, sugar, and pale French brandy, vv^hich is said to be 
deleterious, but is by no means unpalatable. One of the In- 
dians offers a bundle of Bengal cheroots ; and we make acquaint- 
ance with those honest bearded white-jacketed Majors and mill- 
tary Commanders, finding England here in a French hotel kept 
by an Italian, at the city of Grand Cairo, in Africa. 

On retiring to bed you take a towel with you into the sacred 
interior, behind the musquito curtains. Then your duty is, hav- 
ing tucked the curtains closely around, to flap and bang violently 
with this towel, right and left, and backwards and forwards, until 
every musquito shall have been massacred that may have taken 
refuge within your muslin canopy. 

Do what you will, however, one of them always escapes the 
murder : and as soon as the candle is out the miscreant begins 
his infernal droning and trumpeting ; descends playfully upon 
your nose and face, and so lightly that you don't know that he 
touches you. But that for a week afterwards you bear about 
marks of his ferocity, you might take the invisible little being to 
be a creature of fancy — a mere singing in your ears. 

This, as an account of Cairo, dear M , you will probably 

be disposed to consider as incomplete: the fact is, I have seen 
nothing else as yet. I have peered into no harems. The 
magicians, proved to be humbugs, have been bastinadoed out of 



148 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

town. The dancing girls, those lovely Alme, of whom I had 
hoped to be able to give a glowing and elegant, though str.ictly 
moral, description, have been whipped into Upper Egypt, and as 
you are saying in your mind * * Well it isn't a good de- 
scription of Cairo ; you are perfectly right. It is England in 
Egypt ? I like to see her there with her pluck, enterprise, man- 
liness, bitter ale and Harvey sauce. Wherever they come they 
stay and prosper. From the summit of yonder pyramids forty 
centuries may look down on them if they are minded ; and I 
say, those venerable daughters of time ought to be better pleased 
by the examination, than by regarding the French bayonets and 
General Bonaparte, Member of the Institute, fifty years ago, run- 
ning about with sabre and pigtail. Wonders he did to be sure, 
and then ran away, leaving Kleber, to be murdered, in the lurch 
— a few hundred yards from the spot where these disquisitions 
are written. But what are his wonders compared to W^aghorn ? 
Nap. massacred the Mamelukes at the pyramids : Wag. has 
conquered the pyramids themselves ; dragged the unwieldy 
structures a month nearer England than they were, and brought 
the country along with them. All the trophies and captives, 
that ever were brought to Roman triumph, were not so enormous 
and wonderful as this. All the heads that Napoleon ever caused 
to be struck off (as George Cruikshank says) would not elevate 
him a monument as big. Be ours the trophies of peace ! O my 
country ! O Waghorn ! H(e tibi erunt artes. When I go to the 
pyramids I will sacrifice in your name, and pour out libations of 
bitter ale and Harvey sauce in your honor. 

One of the noblest views in the world is to be seen from the 
citadel, which we ascended to-day. You see the city stretching 
beneath it, with a thousand minarets and mosques, — the great 
river curling through the green plains, studded with innumerable 
villages. The pyramids are beyond brilliantly distinct ; and the 
lines and fortifications of the height, with the arsenal lying below. 
Gazing down, the guide does not fail to point out the famous 
Mameluke leap, by which one of the corps escaped death, at the 
time that his Highness the Pasha arranged the general massacre 
of the body. 

The venerable Patriarch's harem is close by, where he re- 



ARCHITECTURE. 149 



ceived, with much distinction, some of the members of our party. 
We were allowed to pass very close to the sacred precincts, and 
saw a comfortable white European building, approached by 
flights of steps, and flanked by pretty gardens. Police and law- 
courts were here also, as I understood ; but it was not the time 
of the Egyptian assizes, ft would have been pleasant, other- 
wise, to see the chief Cadi in his hall of justice ; and painful 
though instructive, to behold the immediate application of the 
bastinado. 

The great lion of the place is a new mosque which Mehemet 
Ali is constructing very leisurely. It is built of alabaster of a 
fair white, with a delicate blushing tinge ; but the ornaments are 
European — the noble, fantastic, beautiful Oriental art is for- 
gotten. The old mosques of the city, of which I entered two, 
and looked at many, are a thousand times more beautiful. Their 
variety of ornament is astonishing, — the difference in the shapes 
of the domes, the beautiful fancies and caprices in the forms of 
the minarets, which violate the rules of proportion with the most 
happy, daring grace, must have struck every architect who has 
seen them. As you go through the street, these architectural 
beauties keep the eye continually charmed : now, it is a marble 
fountain, with its arabesque and carved overhanging roof, which 
you can look at with as much pleasure as an antique gem, 
so neat and brilliant is the execution of it; then, you come to 
the arched entrance to a mosque, which shoots up like — like 
what ? — like the most beautiful pirouette by Taglioni, let us say. 
This architecture is not sublimely beautiful, perfect loveliness 
and calm, like that which was revealed to us at the Parthenon 
(and in comparison of which the Pantheon and Colosseum are 
vulgar and coarse, mere broad-shouldered Titans before am- 
brosial Jove) ; but these fantastic spires, and cupolas, and gal- 
leries, excite, amuse, iickle the imagination so to speak, and per- 
petually fascinate the eye. There were very few believers in 
the famous mosque of Sultan Hassan when we visited it, except 
the Moslemitish beadle, who was on the look out for backsheesh, 
just like his brother officer in an English cathedral ; and who, 
making us put on straw slippers, so as not to pollute the sacred 
pavement of the place, conducted us through it. 



150 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

It is stupendously light and airy ; the best specimens of Nor- 
man art that I have seen (and surely the Crusaders must have 
carried home the models of these heathenish temples in their 
eyes) do not exceed its noble grace and simplicity. The mystics 
make discoveries at home, that the Gothic architecture is Ca- 
tholicism carved in stone (in which case, and if architectural 
beauty is a criterion or expression of religion, what a dismal 
barbarous creed must that, expressed by the Bethesda meeting- 
house and Independent chapels, be ?) ; if, as they would gravely 
hint, because Gothic architecture is beautiful, Catholicism is 
therefore lovely and right,^why, Mahommedanism must have 
been right and lovely too once. Never did a creed possess tem- 
ples more elegant; as elegant as the Cathedral at Rouen, or the 
Baptistery at Pisa. 

But it is changed now. There was nobody at prayers ; only 
the official beadles, and the supernumerary guides, who came 
for backsheesh. Faith has degenerated. Accordingly they can't 
build these mosques, or invent those perfect forms, any more. 
Witness the tawdry incompleteness and vulgarity of the Pasha's 
new temple, and the woful failures among the very late edifices 
in Constantinople ! 

However, they still make pilgrimages to Mecca in great force. 
The mosque of Hassan is hard by the green plain on which the 
Hag encamps before it sets forth annually on its pious peregrina- 
tion. It was not yet its time, but I saw in the bazaars that re- 
doubted Dervish, who is the Master of the Hag — the leader of 
every procession, acompanying the sacred camel ; and a per- 
sonage almost as much respected as Mr. O'Connell in Ireland. 

This fellow lives by alms (I mean the head of the Hag). Win- 
ter and summer he wears no clothes but a thin and scanty white 
shirt. He wields a staff, and stalks along scowling and barefoot. 
His immense shock of black hair streams behind him, and his 
brown, brawny body is curled over with black hair, like a salvage 
man. This saint has the largest harem in the town ; is said to be 
enormously rich by the contributions he has levied ', and is so 
adored for his holiness by the infatuated folk, that when he re- 
turns from the Hag (which he does on horseback, the chief 
Mollahs going out to meet him and escort him home in state 



PRIVATE LIFE. 151 



along the Ezbekieh road), the people fling themselves down under 
the horse's feet, eager to be trampled upon and killed, and con- 
fident of heaven if the great Hadji's horse vv^ould but kick them 
into it. Was it my fault if I thought of Fladji Daniel, and the 
believers in him ? 

There vi^as no Dervish of repute on the plain when I passed ; 
only one poor, wild fellow, who was dancing, with glaring eyes 
and grizzled beard, rather to the contempt of the bystanders, as I 
thought, who by no means put coppers into his extended bowl. 
On this poor devil's head there was a poorer devil still — a live 
cock, entirely plucked, but ornamented with some bits of ragged 
tape and scarlet and tinsel, the most horribly grotesque and 
miserable object 1 ever saw. 

A little way from him, there was a sort of play going on — a 
clown and a knowing one, like VViddicombe and the clown with 
us, — the buffoon answering with blundering responses, which 
made all the audience shout with laughter ; but the only joke 
which was translated to me would make you do anything but 
laugh, and shall therefore never be revealed by these lips. All 
their humor, my dragoman tells me, is of this questionable sort ; 
and a young Egyptian gentleman, son of a Pasha, whom I sub- 
sequently met at Malta, confirmed the statement, and gave a 
detail of the practices of private life, which were anything but 
edifying. The great aim of the women, he said, in the much 
maligned Orient, is to administer to the brutality of her lord; her 
merit is in knowing how to vary the beast's pleasures. He could 
give us no idea, he said, of the wit of the Egyptian women, and 
their skill in double entendre ; nor, I presume, did we lose much 
by our ignorance. What I would urge, humbly, however, is 
this — Do not let us be led away by German writers and aesthetics, 
Semilassoisms, Hahnhahnisms, and the like. The life in the East 
is a life of brutes. The much-maligned Orient, I am confident, 
has not been maligned near enough ; for the good reason that 
none of us can tell the amount of horrible sensuality practised 
there. 

Beyond the jack-pudding rascal and his audience, there was on 
the green a spot, on which was pointed out to me, a mark, as of 
blood. That morning the blood had spouted from the neck of an 



152 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Arnaoot soldier, who had been executed for murder. These 
Arnaoots are the curse and terror of the citizens. Their canips 
are without the city; but they are always brawling, or drunken, 
or murdering within, in spite of the rigid law which is applied to 
them, and which brings one or more of the scoundrels to death 
almost every week. 

Some of our party had seen this fellow borne by the hotel the 
day before, in the midst of a crowd of soldiers who had appre- 
hended him. The man was still formidable to his score of cap- 
tors ; his clothes had been torn off; his limbs were bound with 
cords ; but he was struggling frantically to get free ; and my 
informant described the figure and appearance of the naked, 
bound, writhing savage, as quite a model of beauty. 

Walking in the street, this fellow had just before been struck 
by the looks of a woman who was passing, and laid hands on her. 
She ran away, and he pursued her. She ran into the police 
barrack, which was luckily hard by ; but the Arnaoot was nothing 
daunted, and followed into the midst of the police. One of therh 
tried to stop him. The Arnaoot pulled out a pistol, and shot the 
policeman dead. He cut down three or four more before he was 
secured. He knew his inevitable end must be death : that he 
could not seize upon the woman : that he could not hope to resist 
half a regiment of armed soldiers: yet his instinct of lust and 
murder was too strong; and so he had his head taken off quite 
calmly this morning, many of his comrades attending their bro- 
ther's last moments. He cared not the least about dying ; and 
knelt down and had his head off as coolly as if he were looking on 
at the same ceremony performed on another. 

When the head was off, and the blood was spouting on the 
ground a married woman, who had no children, came forward very 
eagerly out of the crowd, to smear herself with it, — the applica- 
tion of criminals' blood being considered a very favorable medicine 
for women afflicted with barrenness, — so she indulged in this 
remedy. 

But one of the Arnaoots, standing near, said, " What, you like 
blood, do you ? (or words to that effect) — Let's see how yours 
mixes with my comrade's;" and thereupon, taking out a pistol, 
he shot the woman in the midst of the crowd and the guards who 



ARNAOOTS. 153 



were attending the execution ; was seized of course by the latter ; 
and no doubt to-morrow morning will have his head off too. It 
would be a good chapter to write — the Death of the Arnaoot — but 
I shan't go. Seeing one man hanged is quite enough in the 
course of a life. J^y ai ete, as the Frenchman said of hunting. 

These Arnaoots are the terror of the town. They seized hold 
of an Englishman the other day, and were very nearly pistolling 
him. Last week one of them murdered a shopkeeper at Boulak, 
who refused to sell him a water-melon at a-price which he, the 
soldier, fixed upon it. So, for the matter of three half-pence, he 
killed the shopkeeper -, and had his own rascally head chopped 
off, universally regretted by his friends. Why, I wonder, does 
not his Highness the Pasha invite the Arnaoots to a dejeune at the 
Citadel, as he did the iMamelukes, and serve them up the same 
sort of breakfast ? The walls are considerably heightened since 
Emin Bey and his horse leaped them, and it is probable that not 
one of them would escape. 

This sort of pistol practice is common enough here it would 
appear ; and not among the Arnaoots merely, but the higher 
orders. Thus, a short time since, one of his Highness's grand- 
sons, whom I shall call Bluebeard Pasha (lest a revelation of the 
name of the said Pasha might interrupt our good relations with his 
country) — one of the young Pashas being backward I'ather in his 
education, and anxious to learn mathematics, and the elegant 
deportment of civilized life — sent to England for a tutor. I have 
heard he was a Cambridge man, and had learned both algebra 

and politeness under the Reverend Doctor Whizzle, of 

College. 

One day when Mr. Mac Whirter, B.A., was walking in Shou- 
bra gardens, with his Highness the young Bluebeard Pasha, 
inducting him into usages of polished society, and favoring him 
with reminiscences of Trumpington, there came up a poor fellah, 
who flung himself at the feet of young Bluebeard, and calling for 
justice in a loud and pathetic voice, and holding out a petition, 
besought his Highness to cast a gracious eye upon the same, and 
see that his slave had justice done him. 

Bluebeard Pasha was so deeply engaged and interested by his 
respected tutor's conversation, that he told the poor fellah to go to 
8* 



154 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

the deuce, and resumed the discourse wiiich his ill-timed outcry 
for justice had interrupted. But the unlucky wight of a fellah 
was pushed by his evil destiny, and thought he would make yet 
another application. So he took a short cut down one of the gar- 
den lanes, and as the Prince and the Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter, 
his tutor, came along once more engaged in pleasant disquisition, 
behold the fellah was once more in their way, kneeling at the 
august Bluebeard's feet, yelling out for justice as before, and 
thrusting his petition into the royal face. 

When the Prince's conversation was thus interrupted a second 
time, his royal patience and clemency were at an end : " Man," 
said he, " once before I bade thee not to pester me with thy cla- 
mor, and lo ! you have disobeyed me, — Take the consequences 
of disobedience to a Prince, and thy blood be upon thine own 
head." So saying, he drew out a pistol, and blew out the brains 
of that fellah, so that he never bawled out for justice any more. 

The Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter was astonished at this sudden 
mode of proceeding : " Gracious Prince," said he, " we do not 
shoot an undergraduate at Cambridge even for walking over a 
college grassplot. Let me suggest to your Royal Highness that 
this method of ridding yourself of a poor devil's importunities, is 
such as we should consider abrupt and almost cruel in Europe. 
Let me beg you to moderate your royal impetuosity for the future ; 
and, as your Highness' tutor, entreat you to be a little less pro- 
digal of your powder and shot." 

" O Mollah !" said his Highness, here interrupting the govern- 
or's affectionate appeal, — " You are good to talk about Trump- 
ington and the Pons Asinorum, but if you interfere with the 
course of justice in any way, or prevent me from shooting any 
dog of an Arab who snarls at my heels, I have another pistol ; 
and, by the beard of the Prophet ! a bullet for you too." So 
saying, he pulled out the weapon, with such a terrific and sig- 
nificant glance at the Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter, that that gen- 
tleman wished himself back in his Combination Room again ; and 
is by this time, let us hope, safely housed there. 

Another facetious anecdote, the last of those I had from a well- 
informed gentleman residing at Cairo, whose name (as many 
copies of this book that is to be, will be in the circulating libra- 



THE SCREW-PROPELLER IN EGYPT. 155 

ries there) I cannot, for obvious reasons, mention. The revenues 
of the country come into the august treasury through the means 
of farmers, to whom the districts are let out, and who are person- 
ally answerable for their quota of the taxation. This practice 
involves an intolerable deal of tyranny and extortion on the part 
of those engaged to levy the taxes, and creates a corresponding 
duplicity among the fellahs, who are not only wretchedly poor 
among themselves, but whose object is to appear still more poor, 
and guard their money from their rapacious overseers. Thus the 
Orient is much maligned : but everybody cheats there : that is a 
melancholy fact. The Pacha robs and cheats the merchants; 
knows that the overseer robs him, and bides his time, until he 
makes him disgorge by the application of the tremendous basti- 
nado ; the overseer robs and squeezes the laborer ; and the pov- 
erty-stricken devil cheats and robs in return : and so the govern- 
ment moves on in a happy cycle of roguery. 

Deputations from the fellahs and peasants come perpetually 
before the august presence, to complain of the cruelty and exac- 
tions of the chiefs set over them : but, as it is known that the 
Arabs never will pay without the bastinado, their complaints, for 
the most part, m.eet with but little attention. His Highnesses 
treasury must be filled, and his officers supported in their au- 
thority. 

However, there was one village, of which the complaints were 
so pathetic, and the inhabitants so supremely wretched, that the 
royal indignation was moved at their story, and the chief of the 
village, Skinflint Beg, was called to give an account of himself at 
Cairo. 

When he came before the presence, iVlehemet Ali reproached 
him with his horrible cruelty and exactions ; asked him how he 
dared to treat his faithful and beloved subjects in this way, and 
threatened him with disgrace, and the utter confiscation of his 
property, for thus having reduced a district to ruin. 

" Your Highness says I have reduced these fellahs to ruin," said 
Skinflint Beg ; " what is the best way to confound my enemies, 
and to show you the falsehood of their accusations that I have 
j-uined Uiem ? — To bring more money from them. If I bring 



156 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

you five hundred purses from my village, will you acknowledge 
that my people are not ruined yet ?" 

The heart of the Pacha was touched : " 1 will have no more 
bastinadoing. O Skinflint Beg ; you have tortured these poor 
people so much, and have got so little from them, that my royal 
heart relents for the present, and I will have them suffer no far- 
ther." 

" Give me free leave — give me your Highness's gracious par- 
don, and I will bring the five hundred purses as surely as my 
name is Skinflint Beg. I demand only the time to go home, the 
time to return, and a few days to stay, and I will come back as 
honestly as Regulus Pasha did to the Carthaginians, — I will come 
back and make my face white before your Highness." 

Skinflint Beg's prayer for a reprieve was granted, and he re- 
turned to his village, where he forthwith called the elders toge- 
ther : "O friends," he said, "complaints of our poverty and 
misery have reached the royal throne, and the benevolent heart 
of the sovereign has been melted by the words that have been 
poured into his ears. ' My heart yearns towards my people of 
El Muddee,' he says ; ' I have thought how to relieve their mise- 
ries. Near them lies the fruitful land of El Guanee. It is rich 
in maize, and cotton, in sesame, and barley : it is worth a thou- 
sand purses ; but I will let it to my children for seven hundred 
and fifty, and I will give over the rest of the profit to them, as an 
alleviation for their affliction.' " 

The Elders of El Muddee knew the great value and fertility of 
the lands of Guanee, but they doubted the sincerity of their gov- 
ernor, who, however, dispelled their fears, and adroitly quickened 
their eagerness to close with the proffered bargain : " I will my- 
self advance two hundred and fifty purses," he said ; " do you 
take counsel among yourselves, and subscribe the other five hun- 
dred ; and when the sum is ready, a deputation of you shall 
carry it to Cairo, and I will come with my share ; and we will 
lay the whole at the feet of his Highness." So the grey-bearded 
ones of the village advised with one another ; and those who had 
been inaccessible to bastinadoes, somehow found money at the 
calling of interest ; and the sheikh, and they, and the ^ve hun^ 
dred purses, set off on the road to the capital. 



THE MALIGNED ORIENT. 157 

When they arrived, Skinflint Beg and the elders of El Muddee 
sought admission to the royal throne, and there laid down their 
purses. " Here is your humble servant's contribution," said 
Skinflint, producing his share ; "and here is the offering of your 
loyal village of El Muddee. Did I not before say that enemies 
and deceivers had maligned me before the august presence, pre- 
tending that not a piastre was left in my village, and that my 
extortion had entirely denuded the peasantry ? See ! here is 
proof that there is plenty of money still in El Muddee : in twelve 
hours the elders have subscribed five hundred purses, and lay them 
at the feet of their lord." 

Instead of the bastinado, Skinflint Beg was instantly rewarded 
with the royal favor, and the former mark of attention was be- 
stowed upon the fellahs who had maligned him : Skinflint Beg 
was promoted to the rank of Skinflint Bey ; and his manner of 
extracting money from his people, may be studied with admira- 
lion in a part of the United Kingdom.* 

At the time of the Syrian quarrel, and when, apprehending 
some general rupture with England, the Pasha wished to raise 
the spirit of the fellahs, and relever la morale nationale, he actu- 
ally made one of the astonished Arabs a colonel. He degraded 
him three days after peace was concluded. The young Egyp- 
tian colonel, who told me this, laughed and enjoyed the joke with 
the utmost gusto. " Is it not a shame," he said, " to make me a 
colonel at three-and-twenty ; I, who have no particular merit, and 
have never seen any service ?" Death has since stopped the 
modest and good-natured young fellow's further promotion. The 

death of Bey was announced in the French papers, a few 

weeks back. 

My above kind-hearted and agreeable young informant used to 
discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very elo- 
quently about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind 
him at Cairo — her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her 
blue eyes. It is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the 

* At Derrynane Beg, for instance. 



158 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

Turkish aristocracy that governs Egypt, must be indebted for the 
fairness of their skin. Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, 
looked like a bluff, jolly-faced English dragoon officer, with a 
grey mustache and red cheeks, such as you might see on a field- 
day at Maidstone. All the numerous officials riding though the 
town, were quite as fair as Europeans. We made acquaintance 
with one dignitary, a very jovial and fat pasha, the proprietor of 
the inn, I believe, who was continually lounging about the Ezbe- 
kieh garden, and who, but for a slight Jewish cast of countenance, 
might have passed any day for a Frenchman. The ladies whom 
we 'saw were equally fair ; that is, the very slight particles of 
the pei'sons of ladies which our lucky eyes were permitted to 
gaze on. These lovely creatures go through the town by parties 
of three or four, mounted on donkeys, and attended by slaves 
holding on at the crupper, to receive the lovely riders lest they 
should fall, and shouting out shrill cries of Schmaalek, Ameenek 
(or however else these words may be pronounced), and flogging 
off the people right and left with the buffalo thong. But the 
dear creatures are even more closely disguised than at Constan- 
tinople : their bodies are enveloped with a large black silk hood, 
like a cab-head ; the fashion seemed to be to spread their arms 
out, and give this covering all the amplitude of which it was 
capable, as they leered and ogled you from under their black 
masks with their big rolling eyes. 

Everybody has big rolling eyes here (unless to be sure they 
lose one of ophthalmia). The Arab women are some of the 
noblest figures I have ever seen. The habit of carrying jars on 
the head always gives the figure grace and motion ; and the 
dress the women wear certainly displays it to full advantage. I 
have brought a complete one home with me, at the service of any 
lady for a masqued ball. It consists of a coarse blue dress of 
calico, opened in front, and fastened with a horn button. Three 
yards of blue stuff for a veil ; on the top of the veil a jar to be 
balanced on the head ; and a little black strip of silk to fall over 
the nose, and leave the beautiful eyes full liberty to roll and roam. 
But such a costume, not aided by any stays or any other articles 
of dress whatever, can be worn only by a very good figure. I 
suspect it wo'n't be borrowed for many balls next season. 



SUBJECTS FOR PAINTERS. 159 

The men, a tall handsome noble race, are treated like dogs. I 
shall never forget riding ihrough the crowded bazaars, my inter- 
preter, or laquais-de-place, a-head of me to clear the way — when 
he took his whip, and struck it over the shoulders of a man who 
could not or would not make way ! 

The man turned round — an old, venerable, handsome face, 
with awfully sad eyes, and a beard long and quite grey. He 
did not make the least complaint, but slunk out of the way, 
piteously shaking his shoulder. The sight of that indignity gave 
me a sickening feeling of disgust. I shouted out to the lackey to 
hold his hand, and forbade him ever in my presence to strike old 
or young more ; but everybody is doing it. The whip is in 
everybody's hands : the pasha's running footmen, as he goes 
bustling through the bazaar ; the doctor's attendant, as he soberly 
threads the crowd on his mare ; the negro slave, who is riding by 
himself, the most insolent of all, strikes and slashes about without 
mercy, and you never hear a single complaint. 

How to describe the beauty of the streets to you ! — the fantastic 
splendor ; the variety of the houses, and archways, and hanging 
roof, and balconies, and porches ; the delightful accidents of light 
and shade which chequer them ; the noise, the bustle, the 
brilliancy of the crowd ; the interminable vast bazaars with their 
barbaric splendor ! There is a fortune to be made for painters in 
Cairo, and materials for a whole Academy of them. I never saw 
such a variety of architecture, of life, of picturesqueness, of bril- 
liant color, and light and shade. There is a picture in every 
street, and at every bazaar stall. Some of these, our celebrated 
water-color painter, Mr. Lewis, has produced with admirable 
truth and exceeding minuteness and beauty ; but there is room 
for a hundred to follow him ; and should any artist (by some rare 
occurrence) read this, who has leisure, and wants to break new 
ground, let him take heart, and try a winter in Cairo, where 
there is the finest climate and the best subjects for his pencil. 

A series of studies of negroes alone, would form a picture-book 
delightfully grotesque. Mounting my donkey to-day, I took a 
ride to the desolate, noble old buildings outside the city, known 
as the Tombs of the Caliphs. Every one of these edifices, with 
their domes, and courts, and minarets, is strange and beautiful. 



160 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

In one of them there was an encampment of negro slaves newly- 
arrived : some scores of them were huddled against the sunny 
wall ; two or three of their masters lounged about the court, or 
lay smoking upon carpets. There was one of these fellows, a 
straight-nosed ebony-faced Abyssinian, with an expression of such 
sinister good humor in his handsome face, as would form a per- 
fect type of villainy. He sat leering at me, over his carpet, as I 
endeavored to get a sketch of that incarnate rascality. " Give 
me some money," said the fellow. '•' I know what you are about. 
You will sell my picture for money when you get back to Europe ; 
let me have some of it now ?" But the very rude and humble 
designer was quite unequal to depict such a consummation and 
perfection of roguery ; so flung him a cigar, which he began to 
smoke, grinning at the giver. I requested the interpreter to 
inform him, by way of assurance of my disinterestedness, that his 
face was a great deal too ugly to be popular in Europe, and that 
was the particular reason why I had selected it. 

Then one of his companions got up and showed us his black 
cattle. The male slaves were chiefly lads, and the women young, 
well formed, and abominably hideous j the dealer pulled her 
blanket off* one of them and bade her stand up, which she did with 
a great deal of shuddering modesty. She was coal black, her 
lips were the size of sausages, her eyes large and good-humored ; 
the hair or wool on this young person's head was curled and 
greased into a thousand filthy little ringlets. She was evidently 
the beauty of the flock. 

They are not unhappy ; they look to being bought, as many a 
spitister looks to an establishment in England ; once in a family 
they are kindly treated and well clothed, and fatten, and are the 
merriest people of the whole community. These were of a much 
more savage sort than the slaves 1 had seen in the horrible market 
at Constantinople where I recollect, whilst I was looking at one and 
forming pathetic conjectures regarding her fate — that she smiled 
very good-humoredly, and bid the interpreter ask me to buy her 
for twenty pounds. 

From these Tombs of the Caliphs the Desert is before you. It 
comes up to the walls of the city, and stops at some gardens which 
spring up all of a sudden at its edge. You can see the first 



A HYDE PARK MOSLEM. 161 



Station-house on the Suez Road ; and so from distant point to 
point, could ride thither alone without a guide. 

Asinus trotted gallantly into this desert for the space of a quarter 
of an hour. There we were (taking care to keep our backs to 
the city walls), in the real actual desert : mounds upon mounds 
of sand, stretching away as far as the eye can see, until the dreary 
prospect fades away in the yellow horizon ! I had formed a 
finer idea of it out of Eothen. Perhaps in a simoom it may look 
more awful. The only adventure that befel in this romantic 
place was, that asinus's legs went deep into a hole : whereupon 
his rider went over his head, and bit the sand, and measured his 
length there ; and upon this hint rose up, and rode home again. 
No doubt one should have gone out for a couple of days' march — - 
as it was, the desert did not seem to me sublime, only uncomfort- 
able. 

Very soon after this perilous adventure the sun likewise dip- 
ped into the sand (but not to rise therefrom so quickly as I had 
done) ; and I saw this daily phenomenon of sunset with pleasure, 

for I was engaged at that hour to dine with our old friend J , 

who has established himself here in the most complete Oriental 
fashion. 

You remember J , and what a dandy he was, the faultless- 

ness of his boots and cravats, the brilliancy of his waistcoats and 
kid gloves; we have seen his splendor in Regent Street, in the 
Tuileries, or on the Toledo. My first object, on arriving here, 
was to find out his house, which he has taken far away from the 
haunts of European civilisation, in the Arab quarter. It is sit- 
uated in a cool, shady, narrow alley ; so narrow, that it was with 
great difficulty — his Highness Ibrahim Pasha happening to pass at 
the same moment — that my little 'procession of two donkeys mounted 
by self and valet-de-place, with the two donkey-boys, or attend- 
ants, could range ourselves along the wall, and leave room for the 
august cavalcade. His Highness having rushed on (with an 
affable and good-humored salute to our imposing party), we made 
T.'s quarters; and, in the first place, entered a broad covered 
court or porch, where a swarthy tawny attendant, dressed in blue, 
with white turban, keeps a perpetual watch. Servants in the east 



162 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

lie about all the doors, it appears ; and you clap your hands, as 
they do in the dear old Arabian Nights, to summon them. 

This servant disappeared through a narrow wicket, which he 
closed after him ; and went into the inner chambers to ask his 
lord if he would receive us. He came back presently, and rising 
up from my donkey, I confided him to his attendant (lads more 
sharp, arch, and wicked than these donkey-boys, don't walk the 
pave of Paris or London), and passed the mysterious outer door. 

First we came into a broad open court, with a covered gallery 
running along one side of it. A camel was reclining on the grass 
there ; near him was a gazelle to glad J. with his dark blue eye ; 
and a numerous brood of hens and chickens, who furnish his 
liberal table. On the opposite side of the covered gallery rose up 
the walls of his long, queer, many- windowed, many-galleried 
house. There were wooden lattices to those arched windows, 
through the diamonds of one of which I saw two of the most 
beautiful, enormous, ogling, black ej^es in the world, looking down 
upon the interesting stranger. Pigeons were flapping, and hop- 
ping, and fluttering, and cooing about. Happy pigeons you are, 
no doubt, fed with crumbs from the henna-tipped fingers of Zu- 
leikah ! All this court, cheerful in the sunshine, cheerful with 
the astonishing brilliancy of the eyes peering out from the lattice 
bars, was as mouldy, ancient, and ruinous, as any gentleman's 
house in Ireland, let us sa^^ The paint was peeling off" the rickety, 
old, carved galleries ; the arabesques over the windows were 
chipped and worn ; — the ancientness of the place rendered it 
doubly picturesque. I have detained you a long time in the outer 
court. Why the deuce was Zuleikah there, with the beautiful 
black eyes ! 

Hence we passed into a large apartment, where there was a 
fountain ; and another domestic made his appearance, taking me 
in charge, and relieving the tawny porter of the gate. This fellow- 
was clad in blue too, with a red sash and a grey beard. He con- 
ducted me into a great hall, where there was a great, large Sara- 
cenic oriel window. He seated me on a divan ; and stalking off*, 
for a moment, returned with a long pipe and a brass chafing dish : 
he blew the coal for the pipe, which he motioned me to smoke, 
and left me there with a respectful bow. This delay, this mys- 



AN EASTERN ACQUAINTANCE. 163 

tery of servants, that outer court with the camels, gazelles, and 
other beautiful-eyed things, affected me prodigiously all the time 
he was staying away ; and while I was examining the strange 
apartment and its contents, my respect and awe for the owner in- 
creased vastly. 

As you will be glad to know how an Oriental nobleman (such 
as J. undoubtedly is) is lodged and garnished, let me describe the 
contents of this hall of audience. It is about forty feet long, and 
eighteen or twenty high. All the ceiling is carved, gilt, painted, 
and embroidered with arabesques, and choice sentences of Eastern 
writing. Some Mameluke Aga, or Bey, whomi Mehemet Ali in- 
vited to breakfast and massacred, was the proprietor of this man- 
sion once ; it has grown dingier, but, perhaps, handsomer, since 
his time. Opposite the divan is a great bay-window, with a divan 
likewise round the niche. It looks out upon a garden about the 
size of Fountain-court, Temple ; surrounded by the tall houses 
of the quarter. The garden is full of green. A great palm-tree 
springs up in the midst, with plentiful shrubberies, and a talking 
fountain. The room, besides the divan, is furnished with one 
deal-table, value, five shillings ; four wooden chairs, value, six 
shillings ; and a couple of mats and carpets. The tables and 
chairs are luxuries imported from Europe. The regular Oriental 
dinner is put upon copper trays, which are laid upon low stools. 

Hence J Effendi's house* may be said to be much more 

sumptuously furnished than those of the Beys and Agas his 
neighbors. 

When these things had been examined at leisure, J ap- 
peared. Could it be the exquisite of the Europa and the Trois 
Freres ? A man — in a long yellow gown, with a long beard, 
somewhat tinged with grey, with his head shaved, and wearing 
on it, first, a white wadded cotton night-cap, second, a red tar- 
boosh — made his appearance and welcomed me cordially. It was 
some time, as the Americans say, before I could " realize " the 
semillant J. of old times. 

He shuffled off his outer slippers before he curled up on the 
divan beside me. He clapped his hands, and languidly called 
'' Mustapha." Mustapha came with moxe lights, pipes, and 
coftee ; and then we fell to talking about London, and I gave him 



164 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 

the last news of the comrades in that dear city. As we talked, 
his Oriental coolness and languor gave way to British cordiality ; 

he was the most amusing companion of the club once 

more. 

He has adopted himself outwardly, however, to the Oriental 
life. When he goes abroad he rides a grey horse with red 
housings, and has two servants to walk beside him. He wears a 
very handsome grave costume of dark blue, consisting of an em- 
broidered jacket and gaiters, and a pair of trowsers, which would 
make a set of dresses for an English family. His beard curls 
nobly over his chest, his Damascus scimitar on his thigh. His red 
cap gives him a venerable and Bey-like appearance. There is 
no gewgaw or parade about him, as in some of your dandified 
vounor Asas. I should sav that he is Maior-General of Engi- 
neers, or a grave officer of State. We and the Turkified Eu- 
ropean, who found us at dinner, sat smoking in solemn divan. 

His dinners were excellent ; they were cooked by a regular 
Egyptian female cook. We had delicate cucumbers stuffed with 
forced meats ; yellow smoking pilaffs, the pride of the Oriental 
Cuisine ; kid and fowls a V Aboukir and a la Pyramide ; a 
number of little savory plates of legumes of the vegetable-mar- 
row sort ; kibobs with an excellent sauce of plums and piquant 
herbs. We ended the repast with ruby pomegranates, pulled to 
pieces, deliciously cool and pleasant. For the meats, we cer- 
tainly ate them with the Infidel knife and fork ; but for the fruit, 
we put our hands into the dish and flicked them into our mouths 
in what cannot but be the true Oriental manner. I asked for 
lamb and pistachio nuts, and cream-tarts aii poivre ; but J.'s cook 
did not furnish us with either of those historic dishes. And for 
drink, we had water freshened in the porous little pots of grey 
clay, at whose spout every traveller in the East has sucked de- 
lighted. Also it must be confessed, we drank certain sherbets, 
prepared by the two great rivals, Hadji Hodson and Bass Bey 
— the bitterest and most delicious of draughts ! O divine Hod- 
son ! a camel's load of thy beer came from Beyrout to Jerusa- 
lem while we were there. How shall I ever forget the joy in- 
spired by one of those, foaming cool flasks ! 

We don't know the luxurv of thirst in Ensflish climes. Seden- 



LIFE IN THE DESERT. 165 

tary men in cities at least have seldom ascertained it ; but when 
they travel, our countrymen guard against it well. The road 
between Cairo and Suez \s jonclie. with soda-water corks. Tom 
Thumb and his brothers might track their way across the desert 
by those land-marks. 

Cairo is magnificently picturesque : it is fine to have palm- 
trees in your gardens, and ride about on a camel ; but, after all, 
I was anxious to know what were the particular excitements of 
Eastern life, which detained J., who is a town-bred man, from 
his natural pleasures and occupations in London ; where his 
family don't hear from him, where his room is still kept ready at 
home, and his name is on the list of his Club; and where his 
neglected sisters tremble to think that their Frederick is going 
about with a great beard and a crooked sword, dressed up like 
an odious Turk. In a " lark " such a costume may be very well ; 
but home, London, a razor, your sister to make tea, a pair of 
moderate Christian breeches in lieu of those enormous Turkish 
shulwars, are vastly more convenient in the long run. What 
was it that kept him away from those decent and accustomed 
delights ? 

It couldn't be the black eyes in the balcony — upon his honor 
she was only the black cook, who has done the pilaff, and stuffed 
the cucumbers. No, it was an indulgence of laziness such as 
Europeans, Englishmen at least, don't know how to enjoy. Here 
he lives like a languid Lotus-eater — a dreamy, hazy, lazy, to- 
baccofied life. He was away from evening parties, he said ; he 
needn't wear white kid gloves, or starched neckcloths, or read a 
newspaper. And even this life at Cairo was too civilized for 
him ; Englishmen passed through ; old acquaintances would 
call : the great pleasure of pleasures was life in the desert, — 
under the tents, with still more nothing to do than in Cairo ; now 
smoking, now cantering on Arabs, and no crowd to jostle you ; 
solemn contemplations of the stars at night, as the camels were 
picketed, and the fires and the pipes were lighted. 

The night scene in the city is very striking for its vastness and 
loneliness. Everybody has gone to rest long before ten o'clock. 
There are no lights in the enormous buildings ; only the stars 
blazing above, with their astonishing brilliancy, in the blue, 



A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



peaceful sky. Your guides carry a couple of little lanterns, 
which redouble the darkness in the solitary, echoing street. Mys- 
terious people are curled up and sleeping in the porches. A pa- 
trol of soldiers passes, and hails you. There is a light yet in one 
mosque, where some devotees are at prayers all night ; and you 
hear the queerest nasal music proceeding from those pious believ- 
ers. As you pass the mad-house, there is one poor fellow still 
talking to the moon — no sleep for him. He howls and sings 
there all the night — quite cheerfully, however. He has not lost 
his vanity with his reason ; he is a Prince in spite of the bars 
and the straw. 

What to say about those famous edifices, which has not been 
better said elsewhere ? — but you will not believe that we visited 
them, unless I bring some token from them. 

A white-capped lad skipped up the stones with a jug of water 
in his hand, to refresh weary climbers ; and squatted himself 
down on the summit. The vast, flat landscape stretched behind 
him; the great winding river; the purple city, with forts, and 
domes, and spires ; the green fields, and palm groves, and 
speckled villages ; the plains still covered with shining inunda- 
tions — the landscape stretches far, far away, until it is lost and 
mingled in the golden horizon. It is poor work this landscape- 
painting in print. Shelley's two sonnets are the best views 
that I know of the Pyramids — better than the reality ; for a 
man may lay down the book, and in quiet fancy conjure up 
a picture out of these magnificent v/ords, which shan't be dis- 
turbed by any pettinesses or mean realities, — such as the swarms 
of howling beggars, who jostle you about the actual place, and 
scream in your ears incessantly, and hang on your 'skirts, and 
bawl for money. 

The ride to the Pyramids is one of the pleasantest possible. In 
the fall of the year, though the sky is almost cloudless above you, 
the sun is not too hot to bear ; and the landscape, refreshed by 
the subsiding inundations, delightfully green and cheerful. We 
made up a party of some half dozen from the hotel, a lady (the 
kind soda-water provider, for whose hospitality the most grateful 
compliments are hereby offered) being of the company, bent like 



GROUPS FOR LANDSCAPE. 167 

the rest upon going to the summit of Ciieops. Those who were 
cautious and wise, took a brace of donkeys. At least five times 
during the route did my animals fall with me, causing me to 
repeat the Desert experiment over again, but with more success. 
The space between a moderate pair of legs and the ground, is 
not many inches. By eschewing stirrups, the donkey could fall, 
and the rider alight on the ground, with the greatest ease and 
grace. Almost everybody "was down and up again in the course 
of the day. 

We passed through the Ezbekieh and by the suburbs of the 
town, where the garden-houses of the Egyptian noblesse are sit- 
uated, to old Cairo, where a ferry boat took the whole party 
across the Nile, with that noise and bawling volubility in which 
the Arab people seem to be so unlike the grave and silent Turks ; 
and so took our course for some eight or ten miles over the devi- 
ous tract which the still outlying waters obliged us to pursue. 
The pyramids were in sight the whole way. One or two thin, 
silvery clouds were hovering over them, and casting delicate, 
rosy shadows, upon the grand, simple, old piles. Along the track, 
we saw a score of pleasant pictures of Eastern life : — The Pa- 
cha's horses and slaves stood caparisoned at his door ; at the gate 
of one country house, I am sorry to say, the Bey's gig was in 
waiting, — a most unromantic chariot : the husbandmen were 
coming into the city, with their strings of donkeys, and their 
loads ; as they arrived, they stopped and sucked at the fountain : 
a column of red-capped troops passed to drill, with slouched gait, 
white uniforms, and glittering bayonets. Then we had the pic- 
tures at the quay : the ferry-boat, and the red-sailed river boat, 
getting under weigh, and bound up the stream. There was the 
grain-market, and the huts on the opposite side ; and that beauti- 
ful woman, with silver armlets, and a face the color of gold, 
which (the nose-bag having been luckily removed) beamed sol- 
emnly on us Europeans, like a great, yellow harvest moon. The 
bunches of purpling dates were pending from the branches ; grey 
cranes or herons were flying over the cool, shining lakes, that the 
river's overflow had left -behind ; water was gurgling through the 
courses by the rude locks and barriers formed there, and over- 
flowing this patch of ground ; whilst the neighboring field was 



168 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



fast budding into the more brilliant fresh green. Single dromeda- 
ries were stepping along, their riders lolling on their hunches ; 
low sail boats were lying in the canals : now, we crossed an old 
marble bridge ; now, we went, one by one, over a ridge of slip- 
pery earth ; now, we floundered through a small lake of mud. 
At last, at about half-a-mile off the Pyramid, we came to a piece 
of water some two score yards broad, where a regiment of half- 
naked Arabs, seizing upon each individual of the party, bore us 
off on their shoulders, to the laughter of all, and the great per- 
plexity of several, who every moment expected to be pitched into 
one of the many holes with which the treacherous lake abounded. 
It was nothing but joking and laughter, bullying of guides, 
shouting for interpreters, quarrelling about sixpences. We were 
acting a farce, with the Pyramids for the scene. There they 
rose up enormous under our eyes, and the most absurd, trivial 
things were going on under their shadow. The sublime had 
disappeared, vast as they were. Do you remember how Gulliver 
lost his awe of the tremendous Brobdingnag ladies ? Every tra- 
veller must go through all sorts of chaffering, and bargaining, and 
paltry experiences, at this spot. You look up the tremendous 
steps, with a score of savage ruffians bellowing round you ; you 
hear faint cheers and cries high up, and catch sight of little rep- 
tiles crawling upwards : or, having achieved the summit, they 
come hopping and bouncing down again from degree to degree — 
the cheers and cries swell louder and more disagreeable ; pre- 
sently the little jumping thing, no bigger than an insect a mo- 
ment ago, bounces down upon you expanded into a panting major 
of Bengal cavalry. He drives off the Arabs with an oath, — 
wipes his red, shining face, with his yello^^■ handkerchief, drops 
puffing on the sand in a shady corner, where cold fowl and hard 
eggs are awaiting him, and the next minute you see his nose 
plunged in a foaming beaker of brandy and soda-water. He can 
say now and for ever, he has been up the Pyramid. There is 
nothing sublime in it. You cast your eye once more up that 
staggering perspective of a zigzag line, which ends at the sum- 
mit, and wish you were up there — and down again. Forwards ! 
Up with you ! It must be done. Six Arabs are behind you, who 
wo'n't let you escape if you would. 



THINGS TO THINK OF. 169 

The importunity of these ruffians is a ludicrous annoyance to 
which a traveller must submit. For two miles before you reach 
the Pyramids, they seize on you, and never cease howling. Five 
or six of them pounce upon one victim, and never leave him until 
they have carried him up and down. Sometimes they conspire 
to run a man up the huge stair, and bring him, half-killed and 
fainting, to the top. Always a couple of brutes insist upon im- 
pelling you sternv/ards ; from whom the only means to release 
yourself is to kick out vigorously and unmercifully, when the 
Arabs will possibly retreat. The ascent is not the least roman- 
tic, or difficult, or sublime : you walk up a great broken stair- 
case, of which some of the steps are four feet high. It 's not 
hard, only a little high. You see no better view from the top 
than you beheld from the bottom ; only a little more river, and 
sand, and rice field. You jump down the big steps at your lei- 
sure ; but your meditations you must keep for after times, — the 
cursed shrieking of the Arabs prevents all thought or leisure. 

— — And this is all you have to tell about the Pyramids ? O ! 
for shame ! Not a compliment to their age and size ? Not a big 
phrase, — not a rapture ? Do you mean to say that you had no 
feeling of respect and awe ? Try, man, and build up a monu- 
ment of words as lofty as they are — they, whom " imber edax," 
and " aquilo impotens," and the flight of ages, have not been 
able to destroy ! 

— No : be that work for great geniuses, great painters, great 
poets ! This quill was never made to take such flights ; it comes 
of the wing of an humble domestic bird, who walks a common ; 
who talks a great deal (and hisses sometimes) ; who can't fly far 
or high, and drops always very quickly ; and whose unromantic 
end is, to be laid on a Michaelmas or Christmas table, and there 
to be discussed for half an hour — let us hope, with some relish. 



Another week saw us in the Quarantine Harbor at Malta, 
where seventeen days of prison and quiet were almost agreeable, 
after the incessant sight-seeing of the last two months. In the 
interval, between the 23d of July and the 27th of October, we 
may boast of having seen more men and cities than most travel- 
lers have seen in such a time : — Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, 
9 



170 A JOURNEY TO CAIRO. 



Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo. I shall have 
the carpet-bag, which has visited these places in company with 
its owner, embroidered with their names; as military flags are 
emblazoned, and laid up in ordinary, to be looked at in old age. 
With what a number of sights and pictures, — of novel sensa- 
tions, and lasting and delightful remembrances, does a man fur- 
nish his mind after such a tour ! You forget all the annoyances 
of travel ; but the pleasure remains with you, after that kind 
provision of nature by which a man forgets being ill, but thinks 
with joy of getting well, and can remember all the minute cir- 
cumstances of his convalescence. I forget what sea-sickness is 
now ; though it occupies a woful portion of my Journal. There 
was a time on board when the bitter ale was decidedly muddy ; 
and the cook of the ship deserting at Constantinople, it must be 
confessed his successor was for some time before he got his hand 
in. These sorrows have passed away with the soothing influence 
of time : the pleasures of the voyage remain, let us hope, as long 
as life will endure. It was but for a couple of days that those 
shining columns of the Parthenon glowed under the blue sky 
there ; but the experience of a life could scarcely impress them 
more vividly. We saw Cadiz only for an hour ; but the white 
buildings, and the glorious blue sea, how clear they are to the 
memory ! — with the tang of that gipsy's guitar dancing in the 
market-place, in the midst of the fruit, and the beggars, and the 
sunshine. Who can forget the Bosphorus, the brightest and fair- 
est scene in all the world ; or the towering lines of Gibraltar ; or 
the great piles of Mafra, as we rode into the Tagus ? As I write 
this, and think, back comes Rhodes, with its old towers and artil- 
lery, and that wonderful atmosphere, and that astonishing blue 
sea which environs the island. The Arab riders go pacing over 
the plains of Sharon, in the rosy twilight, just before sunrise ; and 
I can see the ghastly Moab mountains, with the Dead Sea gleam- 
ing before them ; from the mosque, on the way towards Bethany. 
The black, gnarled trees of Gethsemane lie at the foot of Olivet, 
and the yellow ramparts of the city rise up on the stony hills 
beyond. 

But the happiest and best of all the recollections, perhaps, are 
those of the hours passed at night on the deck, when the stars 



FINIS. 171 



were shining overhead, and the hours were tolled at their time, 
and your thoughts were fijced upon home far away. As the sun 
rose 1 once heard the priest, from the minaret of Constantinople, 
crying out " Come to prayer," with his shrill voice ringing 
through the clear air ; and saw, at the same hour, the Arab pros- 
trate himself and pray, and the Jew Rabbi, bending over his 
book, and worshipping the Maker of Turk and Jew. Sitting at 
home in London, and writing this last line of farewell, those 
figures come back the clearest of all to the memory, with the pic- 
ture, too, of our ship sailing over the peaceful Sabbath sea, and 
our own prayers and services celebrated there. So each, in his 
fashion, and after his kind, is bowing down, and adoring the 
Father, who is equally above all. Cavil not, you brother or sis- 
ter, if your neighbor's voice is not like yours ; only hope, that 
his words are honest (as far as they may be), and his heart hum- 
ble and thankful. 



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